Wizards & Avalonians III: The Black Maidens & the Rail-Splitter
by Pyeknu
Summary: Side story to "Phoenix From the Ashes," sequel to "W&A II." A surprising discovery at Nurmengard prison unleashes a problem for Harry and his friends…and reveals a dark plot which could spell disaster for the Avalonians and wizardkind. Will the mysterious Friend of Dragons and an undying vampire hunter known in history as the Great Emancipator be able to help stave off disaster?
1. What Was Hidden in a Cave at Nurmengard

_Schloss Greifswald, near Thiessow on Rügen (120 kilometres north of Berlin), Monday 19 July 1937, late morning… _

_"Thank you for doing this for me, Gellert." _

_The handsome man with the ice blue eyes and the wavy dirty blonde hair could only smile as he reached over to gently grasp the hand of his companion as the black Mercedes-Benz 770 W07 bearing the pennants of the Schutzstaffel made its way up the gravel driveway towards the beautiful Baroque mansion house overlooking the Greifswald Bodden. As the beautiful Schwarzes Mädchen trooper — the Black Maidens were Gellert Grindelwald's personal brigade of bodyguards and a special all-female magical auxiliary to the SS (their being magical made them exempt from the Schutzstaffel's rules about recruiting women directly into the organization) — driver guided the vehicle to the front door of the manor that had been a prominent feature on Rügen for decades, the Reichsminister für Magische Angelegenheiten gently grasped the hand of the shuddering woman who served as the present Mahō-Shōgun to the Heavenly Sovereign of Japan. Unlike their driver — who was in a modified version of the midnight-black uniform of the SS — both Gellert Grindelwald and Yomigawa Tsukiko were in Western-style civilian clothes regardless that the former had been given the honorary rank of_ Obergruppenführer _in the SS by Heinrich Himmler in 1935…while the latter was an honorary_ Gensui _in the Imperial Japanese Army as appointed by the Heavenly Sovereign himself in 1929. "When you told me what had happened before you portkeyed to Berlin, Tsukiko, I only felt it proper," he stated in German; his current companion was fluent in the native language of the Reich. _

_Hearing that reassurance from her host, Tsukiko smiled as she gave the current master of the Elder Wand a warm squeeze with her hand, even if her onyx black eyes were still misty with tears she wouldn't publicly shed. "Have you had any chance to convince_ Freiherr _von Taserich in supporting the Führer's cause?" she then wondered. _

_"I've tried," he said with a wry chuckle as the car came to a stop. _

_The driver got out to open the door for her master before trotting over ahead of him to open the other door and allow the visiting supreme sorceress from Kyūshū — already, many of her critics in the International Confederation of Wizards were calling her the "Dark Lady of the Orient" for her open, passionate support of magical freedom fighters who were struggling to overthrow the domination of colonial magical ministries all over southern and southeastern Asia, not to mention most of Africa — to disembark. Offering his arm to her — which she took — Gellert smiled as he escorted Tsukiko up the front steps to politely knock at the main doors. They soon opened to reveal an elderly man in a formal servant's uniform. "The_ Freiherr _is awaiting you and your guest in his drawing room, Minister Grindelwald," he announced to Gellert before formally bowing to Tsukiko. "Generalissima Yomigawa, welcome to Schloss Greifswald. Please follow me." _

_"Thank you," Gellert stated with a polite nod in return as Tsukiko returned that bow. _

_The driver assumed a relaxed at-ease pose by the car as the senior magicals stepped into the interior of the lodge. Once inside, Tsukiko blinked in surprise on seeing how SIMPLE the decor in this beautiful mansion was in comparison to the other great lodges across the German-speaking lands of Europe she had seen. While there were paintings and other forms of art like statues, it wasn't in obnoxiously overwhelming qualities, not like several other such palaces Tsukiko had seen in previous visits to Germany. As they ascended to the second floor, the Mahō-Shōgun breathed out, "Um…" _

_The butler lightly smiled from behind his thick moustache. "The_ Freiherr _doesn't care for such useless frivolities,_ Frau _Generalissima," he calmly stated as they walked down a hallway towards a pair of doors. "Not like Ministerpräsident Göring for example." _

_Hearing that statement, Gellert smirked. When he became Minister of Magical Affairs in 1930 under President Paul von Hindenburg shortly after he had stolen the Elder Wand from Oleg Grigorijevič Gredenko, the disgraced Drumstrang student — as he was German by birth despite his attending a_ **Norwegian** _magical school, the fact that Gellert had been expelled in 1898 didn't matter in the eyes of the noble lords of the Zauberrat when they made him Reichsmagieminister — had been invited to the homes of the governmental, business and social elite for many parties and levées. Seeing how crazy some people went to decorate their homes — especially the current Prime Minister of the Free State of Prussia and Minister of Aviation — Gellert had found himself disgusted at some of their excesses. Yes, the Führer had his odd peculiarities — he was a vegetarian, disdained alcohol of any sort and abhorred smoking — but that made him live a simple life when he wasn't parading in front of the masses. As the two worked together to force the magicals of the Reich to accept the National Socialist way, Gellert had come to respect Adolf Hitler for his audacity, love of his adopted country and determination to ensure that Germany would eventually reign supreme over Europe and the world. _

_Once that goal was achieved in the next decade or so, the master of the Elder Wand knew, it wouldn't take long to finally break down the barriers between magical and normal and allow all to embrace Gellert's vision of the Greater Good. _

_The doors to the sitting room were opened as the butler came to a stop and bowed to the master of Schloss Greifswald. "_Mein Freiherr_, Reichsmagieminister Gellert Grindelwald and the Supreme General of Magic of the Empire of Japan, Madame Yomigawa Tsukiko." _

_"Thank you. You may go." _

_A deep bow before the butler retreated from the room, closing the doors behind him. Both Gellert and Tsukiko bowed low to their host. "Thank you for your willingness to see us both,_ Freiherr_," the former then stated. "My friend here…" _

_"Has come from Japan to inform me of what just happened to Hirosuke." _

_Gellert stopped as a pair of ageless dark grey eyes focused on them, peeking out of a rather ordinary face framed by stylishly-combed black hair with long sideburns, an almost indecently-thin moustache and goatee; the man possessing those features was currently dressed in relaxed civilian clothing common for those of his personal rank and station in the Prussian aristocracy. The Reichsmagieminister relaxed himself as their host walked slowly over to stand closer to them, those ageless eyes scanning both himself and Tsukiko with a frightful intensity neither magical had honestly experienced before. Which was more than understandable, of course. While most European magicals fervently dismissed this man as some mundane fraudster — as they tended to dismiss non-magical metahumans of any stripe, especially if they were one of the ageless foundlings calling themselves "Immortals" as a group — the current master of the Elder Wand knew much differently. Josef Wilhelm_ Freiherr _von Taserich — which wasn't his birth name — was at least fifteen_ **millennia** _old by conservative estimates; when Gellert first met the man years before, Taserich had explained that he simply didn't CARE how old he was…even if he DID remember witnessing both the rise AND fall of Atlantis! _

_Given that he had ALSO supposedly created the three Deathly Hallows, enchanting them with samples of the black crystals flowing within his own blood…! _

_"Hai, Taserich-sama," Tsukiko said with a deep bow of her head, slipping into her native Japanese; she knew her friend and her host both would understand her without the need of translation spells. "It happened two days ago. I sensed it from my office in the Kōkyo, then transported myself to Watari-shima to see what was going on. There, I witnessed an immortal named Uchida Ryūsei behead Hosan-sama after he…" _

_Her voice then broke as she collapsed to her knees and began to weep. Gellert was at her side immediately, moving to comfort her. Watching her, Taserich seemed not to care at all about such an undisciplined display of emotion…before he held out his hand. A crystal of onyx-black material leapt out of Tsukiko's jacket pocket to land in his hand, which made her gasp as she stared wide-eyed at him. Looking down at the crystal for a moment, Taserich hummed. "Is this him?" he quietly asked. _

_Gellert shuddered on hearing the Arctic-level chill in that voice. He had only heard of the_ **one** _instance Taserich had displayed his personal power to magicals. This was an incident all the way back in 1878 when members of the Magische Staatspolizei tried to arrest him for "illegally" augmenting wands of normal-born freshmen students of the Nurmengard Academy with crystals drawn from his blood…which effectively boosted their owners' magic a thousand fold AND rendered them virtually invisible to any type of tracking spell like the British "Trace" system used by the local Ministry of Magic to teach normal-born children about adhering to the Statute of Secrecy. _

_The resultant fight had been brief and embarrassing to the Mastapo; all of them had been teleported back to their headquarters in Berlin stripped of almost all their magic…with a note tied to the leader warning members of the Reichsmagieministerium that any attempt at interfering in Taserich's personal affairs would result in the stripping of ALL magicals in Germany of their power. Save normal-borns, of course. _

_Naturally, officials of the Reichsmagieministerium left the man alone from then on. _

_"It is," Tsukiko flatly declared. _

_A hum escaped the older man's lips as he considered that for a moment before a sparkle of mischievousness flashed in his eyes. "Wolfram!" he called out. _

_The doors opened, revealing the butler. "_Ja_,_ mein Freiherr_?" _

_"Ask the young lady waiting with_ Herr _Grindelwald's car to come in." _

_The butler deeply bowed. "_Jawohl_,_ mein Freiherr_!" _

_He walked off. Gellert and Tsukiko exchanged a confused look as he helped her back to her feet, and then they turned as the butler came back, the Schwarzes Mädchen storm lady accompanying him. She walked smartly, her back ramrod-straight as if she was on parade. Her current master smiled on seeing that; when he had seen the Black Maidens parade before the Führer at his mountain retreat on the slopes of the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden two years before, Gestapo director Reinhard Heydrich had jokingly asked the Reichsmagieminister if he could borrow a platoon of them to bring the regular SS troops up to SM standards. "Sturmfrau Margareta Hecht of the Schwarze Mädchen,_ mein Freiherr_," the butler politely announced with a bow before leaving the room. _

_The newcomer snapped to attention, giving her host the Deutscher Gruß. "Heil Hitler!" _

_Taserich nodded in return; he was not a member of either the government or the Nazi Party…and he was just_ **too** _damned powerful personally to be intimidated by the sycophants who followed the "little corporal from Austria" — as some people believed the immortal often called the Führer in private conversation — in case any of them tried to confront him for his "lack of respect." "_Frau _Hecht, did_ Herr _Grindelwald tell you why he invited his lovely companion from Japan to visit me today?" he asked. _

_A nod as the green-eyed, silver-haired woman — she was twenty years old, having graduated from the Nurmengard Academy two years before — relaxed herself. "_Ja_,_ mein Freiherr_. Your adopted son, Master Hosan Hirosuke, died two days ago at Watari-shima, beheaded by the immortal adopted son of the founder of the Black Dragon Society. He was captured by Generalissima Yomigawa and encased in that mesonium crystal now in your hand before he could be beheaded himself by Master Hosan's last student." _

_"The Canadian who possesses that meson jewel which was buried in that mountain in the lands of the Niitsítapi over the years?" Taserich confirmed. "The one many call the 'Protector of All Life?'" At her nod, he sighed. "Follow me, all of you." _

_The others fell in behind their host as they stepped out of the drawing room. Within a minute, all were walking out onto the back lawn of Schloss Greifswald, which overlooked the bay of the same name that was nestled between the southern shore of Rügen and the mainland coast of Greifswald and the isle of Usedom off to the southeast. "You need not worry about possible Statue of Secrecy violations, Gellert," Taserich calmly explained. "Nor violation of the veil of secrecy Immortals and their Watcher friends keep over themselves all the time. The defensive fields of my home will hide anything I desire them to hide." He pointed to a rune-covered, flat-topped rock located in the middle of the yard; seeing that, Gellert was reminded of the Altar Stone at Stonehenge laid on its side. Thinking on how old his host might be, the Reichsmagieminister wondered if he had actually been there when the great open-air druid temple on England's Salisbury Plain had first been built over five thousand years before. _

_The people stopped about ten metres from the stone when Taserich held up his hand. "Put the crystal there,_ Frau _Hecht," he then bade as he indicated the stone. Margareta took the crystal and did as she was told, and then was beckoned back to stand close to her master and his companions. Taserich then gazed on Tsukiko. "If you please?" _

_The Mahō-Shōgun savagely grinned as she made a gesture with her hand. The black crystal instantly exploded, allowing an aura of energy to produce a dazed Oriental man appearing to be in his mid-twenties, dressed in a kimono-and-hakama combination. As he staggered for a second in bewildered shock, he then tried to reach for a katana…and then realized he didn't have one. Gazing at Uchida Ryūsei, Taserich nodded. _

_"Behead him,_ Frau _Hecht," he coldly ordered. _

_"_Jawohl_,_ mein Freiherr! **DIFFINDO!**_" _

_Uchida didn't even have a chance to cry out in fright before the Cutting Curse ripped into his neck to sever his head as cleanly as a falling guillotine blade. As his body collapsed onto the rock he had been placed on, his head dropped off to one side. Instantly, mystic energy billowed from the ground around the rock as a terrible wind began to blow around them. Lightning then lashed out from the corpse on the rock…though, since there was no Immortal close by to receive the Quickening, it just faded into the sky overhead. Small puddles close to the rock then exploded into vapour as bolts of energy slammed into them. Within a minute or so, the powerful bursts of energy emitting from the decapitated corpse finally faded into nothingness. _

_As silence fell over the grounds, Taserich sighed. "Why…?" _

_Tsukiko gazed on him. "Sir…?" _

_The older man closed his eyes as he turned and walked back towards the Schloss. _

_Watching him go, the Dark Lady of the Orient would swear on her magic and her life that she had seen actual_ **tears** _in Josef von Taserich's eyes… _

* * *

_**Wizards and Avalonians III:  
The Black Maidens and the Rail-Splitter**_  
by Fred Herriot  
A side story to _Phoenix From the Ashes_

Proofreading done by Rose1948, Rashaan Butler and Rorschach's Blot

Plot suggestions made by the DragonBard and Robert Geiger

German translations courtesy of Ralph S. Scots Gaelic translation courtesy of David G.

Based on _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_, written by Seth Grahame-Smith; _Harry Potter_, created by Joanna K. Rowling; _Ikkitōsen_, created by Shiozaki Yūji; _Urusei Yatsura_, created by Takahashi Rumiko; and _Battle Royale_, created by Takami Kōshun (as interpreted by Taguchi Masayuki and Keith Giffen).

Including characters and references from _Mahō Sensei Negima_, created by Akamatsu Ken; _Forever Knight_, created by Barney Cohen and James D. Parriott; _Wraith: The Oblivion_, designed by Mark Rein Hagen, Sam Chupp and Jennifer Hartshorn; _Kōtetsu Tenshi Kurumi_, created by Kaishaku (Ōta Hitoshi and Shichinohe Terumasa); _Indiana Jones_, created by George Lucas; the _Dracula_ sequence of novels, created by Fred Saberhagen; _St. Trinian's_, created by Ronald Searle; _The Guns of the South_, written by Harry Turtledove; _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, created by Joss Whedon; and _Highlander_, created by Gregory Widen.

_Phoenix From the Ashes_ was derived from the fanfic _The Bet: Crippled_, written by Gregg Sharp. This story also contains characters and situations from the fanfic series _Urusei Yatsura - The Senior Year_, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot; and the _Icemaidens_ series, created by Fred Herriot.

* * *

**WRITER'S INTRODUCTION**

_This story starts after the events of_ Lost Relatives_. The teaser harkens back to the period before World War Two and the flashback scenes refer to events during the sixth year in Hogwarts and in the summer following events depicted in_ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_. Amongst magicals, the time of World War Two was when "Grindelwald's War" was fought across all of Europe…and "Tsukuyomi's War of Liberation" was fought in Asia. This story expands on the hidden societies across Earth by introducing the various types of vampires that have appeared in novels, manga and television series such as_ Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_,_ Mahō Sensei Negima_,_ Buffy the Vampire Slayer_,_ Forever Knight _and the late Fred Saberhagen's_ Dracula _sequence…and will also include a surprise guest-star who first appeared in Part 57 of_ Phoenix From the Ashes_._

* * *

Nurmengard (three kilometres northeast of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), the grounds of the Nurmengard Magic Academy, Tuesday 20 July 2010, after dawn…

"You're about a month late, Mac."

Hearing that from the former American Marine who had been saved by an Immortal after his legs had been blown apart by a landmine in Vietnam, Duncan MacLeod chuckled before he stood. His eyes were locked on the small, polished marble memorial located on what had been the quidditch pitch of the magical school serving the Prince-Bishopric of Münster during the years of the Holy Roman Empire…and the site of one of many world-gates that connected Earth with Mars' magical sister-planet of Nerio until 1945.

These days, little remained of the small magical village that had been here for over a millennium…save for the prison built on the grounds of the Academy at the orders of Gellert Grindelwald to house his enemies while he made war against the traditional magical societies of Europe, plus the ruins of the Nurmengard World-Gate. Since the Battle of the Gates in the afternoon of the summer solstice in 1945, small groves of trees had been planted on the grounds to help physically mask this place from normal passers-by living in and around Handorf to the east of Nurmengard, riding the trains on the Wanne-Eickel-Hamburg line that passed through the grounds from the great port city to the northeast of Münster to Herne far to the southwest, or travelling aboard ships on the Dortmund–Ems Canal west of Nurmengard which connected the industrial city that helped form the waterway's name on the banks of the Ruhr east of Herne to the beautiful seaport of Emden on the North Sea coast near the border with the Netherlands.

"Well, I couldn't get here for the actual anniversary day of David's death," Duncan admitted as Joe Dawson — who was wearing a bracelet around his left hand to protect him from the mundane-repellant charms that was used to keep this place shielded from any normal person — walked over to stand beside him. "Was busy in Seacouver…"

Dawson nodded. "Yeah, I know. Lynn told me." The elder Watcher's niece Lynn Horton was Duncan's current observer. "What the hell happened, anyway?"

"Some of Jacob Kell's friends who survived his trying to kill Connor and I came to town," the man known amongst Immortals and those who often involved themselves with the undying foundling swordsmen as the "Highlander" breathed out. "And I thought the first bunch at the turn of the millennium were bad? Still…"

The other man nodded as he gazed on the beautifully-cut piece of granite before his undying friend from Scotland. "'Schwarze Mädchen?' Who were they?"

"Wand-witch warriors who fought with Master Grindelwald to unleash a magical revolution across Europe, Master Dawson. And eventually the world," an airy voice called out from nearby. "All normal-borns. A lot of them were German and Austrian, but there was a considerable number recruited from across the Continent. Even Britain was represented; the last _Reichsführerin der Schwarze Mädchen_ herself was a Hogwarts graduate. As was her twin; she commanded the _Vierte Bataillon_. Both were from the NEWT class of 1938; they were Professor Dumbledore's best transfiguration students at the time." A sigh echoed over the grounds. "A pity their true story was never accepted after the Battle of the Gates. Then again, even if the Americans and the Soviets did much to repair the damage Master Grindelwald unleashed across Europe, the memories of that war are still too fresh in the minds of the generation that lived during that time period. The sheer destruction of all that had been in magical societies from the day the Statute came into being. The loss of all the enslaved magicals from the colonies…!"

Duncan smiled. "Would you say they're all infested with wrackspurts, Luna?"

A chuckle responded as an invisibility screen was dropped to reveal an amused Luna Lovegood. "Oh, I sometimes find myself thinking that, Highlander," the magical naturalist and newspaper reporter from County Devon mused as she walked over, her hand out to allow him to courtly kiss it. She then gazed on Dawson for a moment before she smiled in delight. "Your recordings in the Watcher Annals are quite wonderful to read, Master Dawson. Unlike the words of many of your friends, they never put me to sleep."

Dawson tried to scowl at her. "I always heard you Lovegoods were crazy…"

"Joe!" Duncan groaned out.

Luna hummed. "He appears to be infested with wrackspurts himself, I believe."

Dawson sputtered as Duncan laughed…before he slightly tensed as a powerful buzz surged through his body. Instantly on guard as his hand reached under his jacket to pull out his katana, he then jolted on feeling a soft hand grasp his arm. "This is Holy Ground, Highlander," Luna warned. "Do you wish to risk what happened to Pompeii years ago to happen here? With all the ley lines that intersect at this place?"

Duncan blinked before he relaxed himself. The first of the rules of the Game — to NEVER fight on any sort of ground that was considered holy, regardless of the faith or religion whose beliefs had sanctified such ground! — was for a good reason. It was Immortal legend that the destruction of Pompeii in 79 C.E. had been triggered when two of the undying swordsmen had fought on the grounds of a temple to Apollo on the southern slopes of Vesuvius. When one fighter had lost his head, the resultant Quickening shattered several ley lines that intersected close to the great volcano, thus unleashing a holocaust that had killed thousands…including the victor of that particular duel. "Yeah. I just hope whoever that is knows that," he mused.

"Knows what?"

The Highlander tensed, and then he smirked. "Methos."

Everyone turned as a lanky man with raven hair and hazel-brown eyes came towards them from the direction of the World-Gate site. Like Duncan MacLeod, the man known to his fellow Watchers as "Adam Pierson" had come to this place armed with his broadsword under his jacket…though he, at least, kept it hidden. "I didn't recognize you," Duncan stated as he shook the new arrival's hand. "Seems that the magic in this place hazes up our senses." He hummed. "You weren't here back in '45. How…?"

A smirk crossed Methos' face. "Davis Wisden was one of the few of us who knew who I was back then," he explained as he exchanged polite nods with Dawson and Luna. "He thought my idea of 'hiding in plain sight' was ingenious. Actually helped me along in a couple places." The oldest living Immortal sighed. "Damn shame about that Dark Quickening he went through before this went down. Still, if he hadn't gone through that, who would have allowed their head to be taken by Dean to destroy the World-Gate?"

"Yeah," Duncan stated before he tensed again. "Damn…"

"Seems to be a bit of a convention today," Methos noted before nodding over towards the imposing fortress nearby which had once housed the Nurmengard Academy and now served as the prison for one of the most feared magical Dark Lords in recent history, not to mention those of his followers who were still alive. "Wonder who came by to visit."

"Let's go find out," Duncan bade.

Everyone then headed down a worn path towards the gates of the old magical school built into the side of a volcanic monadnock that had surged up through the bedrock of the Westphalian Lowlands millions of years before. Gazing on the monastery-like tower built into the south face of Nurmengardberg, Duncan frowned on noting the small crowd of men and women gathered near the main doors, those capped with the banner that had been Grindelwald's rallying cry: **FÜR DAS HÖHERE WOHL**. Some of the people there, he quickly noted, were in magical body armour with combat holsters for their wands. Bands around their upper arms bore the flags of various European nations, America, Canada and Israel. Noting that, the Highlander nodded. _Magische Justizvollzugsanstalt Nurmengard_ — as this place was officially called in German — was under the administrative control of the International Conference of Magical Communities and not the German Federal Ministry of Magical Affairs. Such would remain in place until those incarcerated here finally died off and the grounds could be ritually cleansed properly before the land would be turned back to the control of the local magicals. No doubt, the guards here had greeted the other visiting immortals upon their arrival; normal-repelling charms had no effect on people like Duncan MacLeod and Methos…not to mention those members of a certain bioroid race that had moved to Earth five months before.

Meeting those Avalonian-Americans who had settled into Seacouver and other such places on Puget Sound had been quite hair-raising at first. Duncan had many ways of dealing with those people who got a little too snoopy when it came to investigating his life.

He had yet to devise a way to deal with a race of _**touch telepaths**_!

"Duncan! Adam!"

Both men perked on hearing the cheery voice of Amanda Darieux, and then they exchanged knowing smirks. "She was here?" Methos then wondered as a familiar blonde woman with dark brown eyes walked over from the crowd to join them.

Duncan smirked. "I didn't see her…but given that Grindelwald had moved a lot of interesting magical artifacts here during that war, it wouldn't surprise me that she was here looting it while Albus and his friends were busy trying to take the place."

"Duncan MacLeod! You wound me!" the beautiful, millennia-old Norman thief/adventurer groaned out dramatically as she stopped close to them, and then she shrugged as she winked towards Luna. "As I'm sure Selene's daughter there could tell you, I was under contract by Gringotts to retrieve many goblin-made artifacts that _Herr_ Grindelwald had gathered over the years. Made quite a bit of money out of it, too!"

"I'll bet you did," Duncan stated as he nodded politely towards Robert and Angelina de Valicourt, two of about three dozen Immortals that — in the summer of 1945, a month after the official end of the most devastating war Europe had ever seen — had gathered at Nurmengard to help the Allies deal with Grindelwald and his supporters once and for all. He was quick to spot people such as Erno Jocszak and Alicia Mackenzie, who both had Duncan's back when he blunted the charge of a regiment's worth of potion-drugged therianthropes charging through the World-Gate from Nerio — sent by Grindelwald's last ally in that war, the legendary Mage of the Beginning, to reinforce the German dark lord's faltering troops…but had actually come to help lead a conquest of Earth — that summer afternoon. If it hadn't been for David Wisden and the Black Maidens…

«Highlander…!»

He tensed on hearing that whispered voice in his mind, and then looked around. Luna was quick to see that. "Is there something wrong?" she wondered.

«Help us, Highlander…!»

Duncan blinked several times. "I heard that," Amanda noted.

"So did I," Methos stated as the other Immortals began to look around.

"That sounded like Elizabeth Gibbon," Alicia — a Slavic-looking woman despite her Scottish family name, possessing raven-black hair and deep blue eyes — said.

"The leader of the Schwarze Mädchen, Madame Mackenzie?" Luna wondered.

"Yes," Erno breathed out as he and several others came over to join the Highlander and his companions. "Elizabeth!" the raven-haired Hungarian with the goatee and moustache — he almost reminded Duncan himself of Antonius Kalas, though Erno would never have conceived of trying to expose Immortals to normals like the Roman senator's adopted son-turned-monk nearly did a decade before — barked out. "We can hear you, but we can't see you! Can you tell us where you are so we can find you?!"

«It's so cold here, Erno…!»

"How could she be still alive?!" Robert demanded. "We saw all the Black Maidens disintegrate when they poured their magic into helping destroy the World-Gate after the Life-Maker turned on Grindelwald! There was nothing left of them…!"

"Wait!" Luna said as she drew her wand. "_Revideor Elizabeth Gibbon!_"

Her wand-tip flared for a moment, and then a bolt of energy lashed out towards the west side of Nurmengardberg. "This way!" the magical naturalist bade as she raced off in the direction the beam of magic was now leading her.

Without hesitation, Duncan ran off after her…

* * *

The Avalon bioroid factory (at Lagrange Point One between the Earth and the Moon), an observation dome over Gestation Tower #98, that moment…

_**Something curious is happening now, Controller.**_

The young warrior-priestess who had become the master of the Staff of Gihan perked on hearing the central computer of the ancient battle staff speak into her mind, and then she looked up. "What has attracted your attention?" she asked.

_**It appears that a large group of magically-endowed Terran-form Avalonians are now trying to awaken themselves from a considerable amount of time in slumber.**_

Inada Mizuho perked as that sank into her mind, and then she demanded, "_**WHERE?!**_"

_**The magical prison at Nurmengard in Germany; inside a man-made cave to the west of the prison complex itself**_, the Staff of Gihan replied. _**According to what I can perceive of this location, whoever is trapped there have been there for over sixty-five years.**_

Hearing that, the only Japanese follower of Zoroastrianism — in both the dimension of her birth and this dimension where she had been literally reborn over five months before — blinked before she gazed wide-eyed at the seventeen millennia-old _haijo-ju_'s focusing crystal. "How in the Master's Name is that even possible?!" she demanded.

_**It appears that the magical societies of Earth — at least one small element of them — were aware of the presence of the many Niphentaxian observers living on the planet at the time of the end of the Second World War. Given that such observers were given the right to possess Avalonian 'assistant observers' at that time…**_

She groaned. "Take me there!"

**_At once!_**

In a flash of light, the Shiroiwa Junior High School senior (class of 2000-2001) and her powerful weapon teleported themselves off the factory…

* * *

Nurmengard…

"Hey, Mac! What's going on here?!"

Duncan spun around, his jaw dropping. "Carl?!"

A hearty chuckle escaped Carl Robinson as he moved to give the Highlander his personal handshake, which the Scottish immortal was more than pleased to return. The dark-skinned immortal from Louisiana had just run over from the main entrance into the prison. "Friend of yours, Mac?" Amanda asked as her eyes danced up and down the former slave's well-formed body, her own eyes sparkling with considerable interest.

"A good friend, Amanda," Duncan said…before he gaped on seeing Carl's companion.

Luna was quick to recognize her. "Tsukiko-sensei!" she cried out with delight.

"How are you, Luna-chan?!" Yomigawa Tsukiko — who was dressed in her normal Shintō shrine maiden robes — said as she accepted the British magical reporter's warm embrace, and then she turned to gaze on the other immortals assembled in a group before the location Luna's tracking spell had struck on the face of Nurmengardberg. "May all of you live long and happy lives and may they be always fruitful," she then intoned. "Know that within the shrines of the Kami, you will all know peace and safety."

Sensing the earnest magical blessing behind the words the Dark Lady of the Orient just uttered, the immortals all bowed their heads in thanks. "And may you continue to fight for what is right, Lady Tsukuyomi-no-Tsukushi," Methos returned with a smile.

Tsukiko's pitch-black eyes sparkled in amused recognition. "Adam-san," she said before turning to Luna. "What's going on here, Luna-chan? I felt your spell…"

"The Schwarze Mädchen are possibly alive, Lady Tsukiko," Erno said.

The former Mahō-Shōgun of Japan stopped as her jaw dropped in shock, and then she raised her hand, whispering something in very archaic Japanese. A second later, a bolt of reddish energy lashed out at the craggy face of Nurmengardberg. Striking the rock, it expanded to create a roughly circular field of energy, which then melted into a holographic picture. What was displayed inside made everyone gape. "Oh, my God!" Carl gasped as his dark skin paled with horror. "What the hell happened to them?!"

«Carl…?»

He jolted before his jaw dropped. "Regina…?"

Luna gazed on him. "Regina Mitchell?!"

«Carl…help us…!»

He nodded. "Yeah! Probably the only normal white girl I ever really liked! Never knew she was magical!" he declared. "You hang on tight, Regina!" he then called out. "We'll get you out of…!"

"Oh, my God…!"

Eyes locked on Dawson. "What is it, Joe?" Methos demanded.

He nodded towards the image. "Those are _Avalonian gestation chambers_, Adam!"

Stunned silence fell…before a flash of energy caused everyone to blink before they gazed once more on the image Tsukiko's magic created. On seeing who had just teleported herself into the chamber lined on both sides by _hundreds_ of standing glass tubes in multiple rows, Luna gaped in stunned recognition. "It's _**her**_…!"

"Oh, Wise Master! Have mercy…!"

Everyone jolted before they looked around for the source of that voice. "Is that…?" Amanda began.

"It is she, Amanda-san," Tsukiko stated as the woman who just teleported into the cave hefted an ornate two metre-long staff with a crescent moon-shaped head, holding a crystal the size of the average adult human skull. "The mysterious '_**her**_'…"

The immortals gazed on her. "Do you know her name, at least?" Alicia asked, surprised that someone with Tsukiko's experience hadn't learned something simple like _that_.

"No one knows her name," Luna confessed. "But for the last several months, she's been appearing in magical enclaves on Earth, not to mention frequently visiting Nerio as well. She recently saved the life of Princess Poyo Rainyday of the Daemona from a rampaging griffin-dragon near Ariadne; her sister Zazie is a friend of mine. She's done much to protect magical wildlife. She's very enamoured with dragons."

Duncan grinned. "I'll bet Hagrid likes her."

"He does!" Luna asserted. "He do-…!"

_**Controller, there is a problem.**_

Everyone jolted on hearing that booming voice. "What was THAT?!" Carl demanded.

"What is the problem?" the newcomer in the cave demanded.

_**The controls that would allow these magicals to be freed from containment have been fused together by what appears to be a powerful life-energy burst**_, that voice — which reminded Duncan of the voice of God as performed by Charlton Heston in an uncredited role in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille version of _The Ten Commandments_ — advised as the focusing crystal of the newcomer's staff softly pulsed in cadence with the words. _**I would recommend moving these unfortunates to the bioroid factory or one of the ships the Avalonians brought to Earth so they could be freed by competent technicians.**_

"_**No…!**_"

Everyone blinked on hearing that hissing voice, and then Methos sighed. "Oh, no!"

"What?!" Duncan demanded.

The oldest Immortal alive sighed. "They're…"

"**_You will not take our prey away from us, crystal-blood!_**"

"…vampires," Methos completed…

…as a company's worth of snarling humanoid figures lunged out of the shadows at the newcomer. "Oh, my!" Luna cried out as she moved to level her wand at the place her tracking spell had landed earlier, and then she summoned her magic. "_**REDUCTO!**_"

Her Reductor Curse slammed into the rock, ripping a man-sized hole into the granite which was enough to penetrate through to the hidden cave…

…just as a massive burst of energy exploded from WITHIN the cave! Everyone screamed out on being nearly blinded by such a flash of radiance, many of them ducking away to cover their eyes. Silence then fell over the scene as people turned to look back into the hole Luna had made seconds before. Tsukiko was now moving to gaze inside, forging an illumination charm around her hand as she scanned the cave beyond. Luna immediately moved to stand beside her former teacher to look herself…and then she sighed. "Well, I will say one thing about her," she mused.

"What's that, Luna-chan?" the Dark Lady of the Orient asked.

Luna smirked. "She's very _neat_."

By then, several of the immortals were moving to look themselves. "Okay! So where the hell did Regina and all her friends vanish to?!" Carl demanded.

"We'll have to ask the Avalonians," Duncan mused as they gazed at the now VERY empty cave, which bore no trace of those who had been trapped there.

Much less anyone else…

* * *

Docked alongside the bioroid factory, minutes later…

The _Freedom_ was one of the 156 warships of the "Army of Lum" that had been seized back in February by the Avalonians as they fled the Phentax system. A Niphentaxian-built version of a Kashin-class battlewagon, she had been purged of her original crew thanks to intruder control systems by the Avalonian engineering staff, then filled to the deckheads with escaping slaves. After coming to Earth, the _Freedom_ housed its refugees for a month before they were allowed to resettle in various nations across the planet. Once she had performed that task, the battlewagon had been moored alongside the bioroid factory, the warp drive was gutted and the weapons stripped from her hull; the _Freedom_ and her sisterships were allocated for eventual dismantling and recycling.

"How in Lyna's name did all of THEM come here?!"

Fortunately, _Freedom_ did have a security team assigned to her at this time.

One, after all, just NEVER knew…

"I don't know," one of the patrolwomen assigned to the ship said as she shook her head. "I just saw a flash of light from the hangar deck, then looked in…"

"And you found all these," the watchmistress in charge finished as she gazed intently on the gestation chambers that had appeared inside the old main hangar bay.

The younger bioroid nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

«Help us…!»

Both women standing on the deck perked on hearing that plea within their minds, and then the watchmistress walked over to gaze intently at one of the trapped bioroids inside the nearest gestation unit. Noting she was Terran-form and Caucasian — with a head of very beautiful blonde hair framing a well-formed face that made her look to be eighteen or so — the watchmistress then reached out with a hand to touch the glass that was holding her in place. «Are you well, sister?» she telepathically asked.

An empathic wave of surprise answered her. «You're magical?!» the trapped woman asked in a voice that had a recognizable English Yorkshire accent.

«Actually, I'm an Avalonian,» the watchmistress replied. «I'm a bioroid.» She then frowned. «Weren't you programmed with that information when you were templated?»

Confusion and a touch of fear appeared in that mental "voice" as the trapped woman mentally said, «I don't understand those terms.»

The watchmistress looked over. "Get a medical team here, stat!"

The patrolwoman nodded. "HAI!"

She ran towards a nearby communications station…

* * *

Nurmengard, a half-hour later…

"Luna!"

Luna looked over, and then she blinked. "Harry!" she called back as a small team of British aurors led by their director came up after travelling from London via portkey.

Watching this from nearby, all the immortals grinned as the Man-Who-Won embraced one of his closest friends. "When you need the best, you send the best," Amanda mused.

"You can say that again," Duncan noted; as many immortals had often interacted with magicals across the planet, the news of what Harry Potter had done in the 1990s to finally put down Voldemort had gained their attention. And admiration.

"What happened here, Luna?" Harry then asked as Luna guided him towards the just-opened cave, which was being guarded by two of the prison's in-house staff.

"Another appearance by our mysterious Japanese dragon-lover with the energy staff," Luna explained as they were waved into the cave by one of Nurmengard's prison staff; the entrance had been expanded by Tsukiko before she went in to do her investigation. "Tsukiko-sensei was here to visit Master Gellert. We've got a convention of immortals as well. Most are veterans of the Battle of the Gates. Master Carl Robinson was here escorting Sensei; he helped rescue her from Japan in 1945 when the Americans moved to save her from the Fat Man bomb. Tsukiko-sensei!" she called out.

Tsukiko — who had been kneeling on the ground as she used her eyes and magical senses to examine what residue remained from whoever had been here — looked over before she rose. "Harry-kun. Did we get you out of bed too early?" she asked.

Harry bowed respectfully to his former teacher, which she returned. "I just got into the office. Anything happening here rates a priority response from all the magical ministries in Europe," he explained as he drew his wand. "What happened here?"

"It appears Gellert's delightful brigade of combat sorceresses aren't as dead as we were once led to believe," Tsukiko stated before she waved her hand.

Harry blinked as a magical hologram appeared around them. He then gaped in shock on recognizing the mechanical devices that had once been inside this cave…and the people trapped within those very devices. "Oh, my God…!" he breathed out.

"Avalonian gestation chambers," Luna explained. "Did you get a total count, Sensei?"

"Forty-four hundred units," Tsukiko answered. "Enough for all the Schwarze Mädchen. I should know; I created the boxes that would be used for their personal effects after they 'died.'"

"But the Avalonians weren't here at the end of World War Two, Mistress Tsukuyomi," one of the prison staff — an officer of the American Department of Magic, Harry recognized by the armband he wore — stated. "How on Earth could the Schwarze Mädchen have been saved from immolating themselves to destroy the World-Gate and become bioroids?"

"The Niphentaxians, I would suspect," Luna answered.

Eyes locked on her, and then Harry nodded. "They've had observers on this planet for decades. They knew about all the magical enclaves, too. How would Ambassador Holmes' father have saved Rose and the others back in the 1980s?" he mused as Tsukiko dispersed the hologram. "The bioroid factory was available to them…"

Luna hummed. "A possible admirer of Master Gellert?"

He nodded. "Possibly." To the prison guard. "Could I speak to him for a moment?"

The American smiled. "Right this way, Director Potter."

* * *

Minutes later…

"Harry Potter…"

"Good morning, Master Gellert," Harry said as the frail, elderly man who had been residing inside the topmost cell in the prison tower for the last sixty-five years slowly rose and offered his hand. "I trust the accommodations are pleasant."

Gellert Grindelwald smirked as the young British wizard gave him a firm handshake. "It is what I deserve, Mister Potter," he said in barely-accented English before he smiled with delight at the beautiful woman who had accompanied her old schoolmate to the cell. "Miss Lovegood. As beautiful as ever. My thanks as always for the free copies of _The Quibbler_ you and your father send me," he said as he gently took her hand to give it a courtly kiss. He then blinked in confusion on seeing who else had come in. "Did something just happen?" he wondered as he moved to take his seat, waving his former ally over to sit on the bed. "I hardly hear anything in here these days."

"Something did happen, old friend," Yomigawa Tsukiko stated as she gazed intently at him. "Elizabeth-chan and her friends are all alive."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Impossible! I saw them die!" a pale Grindelwald breathed out as his eyes teared.

"We know," a strange voice then declared from the cell entrance.

Grindelwald looked over, and then his blue eyes went wide. "Highlander…!" he breathed out before nodding greetings to Duncan McLeod. Even if the immortals who had allied themselves with the mixed Allied team of hit-wizards and the War Hawks had helped defeat him at the Battle of Nurmengard, years of reflection had eroded the deep hatred the former master of most of magical Europe once felt for the undying swordsmen who had been fighting their vicious "Game" for as long as civilization had existed on Earth. "I expected you and your friends to have come here a month ago."

"All of us were pretty busy. The Game doesn't allow us to take breaks to remember old friends," Duncan stated before he gazed at Tsukiko. "We saw them, Gellert. We HEARD them in our minds." He took a deep breath. "Do you know of the Space Angels?"

The aged arch-mage nodded. "The Avalonians. The race of biological androids that was rescued by the Earth Angel and her adopted family some months ago. Some of the female guards here have done body-swaps in the last few months. Improved their magic almost fifty percent in all cases according to that special test that bright young fellow from the Department of Mysteries in Bonn devised back in the 1980s." He nodded to Harry. "Heard what happened when Harry's wives and his mistress were transformed into them as well…and I know about Harry's sister and her friends who went to Meridiana thanks to Madame Holmes. Didn't do Tom Riddle's young supporters in Britain much good. Why?"

"Elizabeth-chan and her friends were trapped within Avalonian gestation chambers, hidden inside a cave in the west side of the mountain, Gellert," Tsukiko answered. "I doubt you would remember meeting strange people with pointed ears when you were the Reich Minister of Magical Affairs in the 1930s and 1940s." At his surprised look, she added, "There were a couple Niphentaxian observers who lived in the village close to Tenmon-jinja. I never suspected they were aliens until those delightful Noukiites came to clear them off the planet in February…and this was after I had spent years training Harry-kun's sister and her friends. They knew about magicals, Gellert, so it would have been easy for them — even in the 1930s and 1940s — to slip in and out of the various enclaves to take close observations of people such as we."

"And their technology was advanced enough to defeat any magical defences against such things," Luna added. "Alicia Holmes told me that once."

"Could _Freiherr_ von Taserich have known of them?" Harry asked.

Grindelwald chuckled. "It's a lucky thing Heather Thompkins called off all the search parties sent by the various European ministries to find that man when she was elected as a Supreme Mugwump in the ICMC in the 1950s." He then sobered. "As Duncan or any of his friends can explain, Harry, Josef von Taserich is a man who — if he ever came to see you as a potential threat — would destroy you totally and utterly…and you wouldn't have any hope of slowing him down. The only people I know of who could stand up to him in an all-out battle are Dean Raeburn and Vladímir Tayčéško." He sighed. "If he knew of the Space Angels' masters — if he sensed observers from there here on Earth — the _Rittmeister_ would have made sure they never became a threat to him."

"So if whatever observers that were in Germany or those parts of Europe occupied by Germany in the Second World War were found by him…and if they had non-templated Avalonian bodies ready to use as deep penetration agents…" Duncan mused.

"The _Rittmeister_ could have seized those bodies, studied the templation process, then prepared replacement bodies for the Schwarze Mädchen. Their souls could have been transmitted into the new bodies the instant their old bodies were vaporized during the Battle of the Gates," Luna finished. At the others' surprised looks, she added, "His sympathy to normal-born magicals was well-known. The Schwarze Mädchen were all loathed and feared throughout Europe because they were normal-born and fanatically dedicated to the destruction of all European-based traditional magical societies in the pursuit of the Greater Good." She smiled. "Being normal-borns gave the Schwarze Mädchen a far wider and more cynical world-view than magical-born fighters would have possessed."

Grindelwald nodded. "Luna is right about the _Rittmeister_'s sympathy to normal-borns," he stated. "There was one time back in 1878 when the Mastapo tried to stop his augmenting the wands of normal-born students with ebony meson crystals from his own blood. They actually tried to obliviate him of all the knowledge he had of various magical societies." As Duncan snorted on hearing that, muttering on how impossible _that_ would have been, the former Dark Lord of Europe added, "They were all stripped of their magic and sent to Berlin with a note tied to one of them, warning the Mastapo to not bother him again." As the others chuckled — learning to deal with non-magical metahumans had always been a difficult thing for magical law enforcement to grasp — he added, "I do recall the _Rittmeister_ taking a particular liking to Margareta Hecht."

"The _Sturmscharführerin_ of the Black Maiden Brigade," Luna noted. "The Brigade's regimental sergeant-major to borrow the proper Army term for such a position."

Their host nodded. "The same. Like all of them, she was top of her class at magical school…but because she was normal-born, she wouldn't have gone far in the more traditional enclaves in Germany at the time. She was my driver when I took Tsukiko to Schloss Greifswald when she came to tell the _Rittmeister_ of the death of Master Hosan in 1937." He bowed his head. "At the _Rittmeister_'s order, Gretta beheaded the man responsible — Uchida Ryūsei, if I recall the name correctly — to see if he had absorbed Master Hosan's memories and life energy." He shook his head. "They weren't there."

"Hirosuke allowed his memories to be passed on to Dean Raeburn," Duncan stated.

Grindelwald nodded. "As we learned later." He gazed on Harry. "What happens now? Will they be forced to face war crimes trials? I would think their actions in 1945 when the Life-Maker launched an invasion of Earth from Nerio would exonerate them."

"We have to make sure they're healthy first, Master Gellert. I won't allow any of them — especially English ones like Elizabeth and Jessica Gibbon — to face prison without ensuring they're physically and mentally fit to stand trial. My counterparts in other nations will do the very same thing for their missing citizens," the Man-Who-Won answered. "Given that they are probably all Avalonians now, officials of the Provisional Government aboard the bioroid factory will have to be contacted about this. Their rights as Avalonians would have to factor into whatever legal proceedings — if any! — are to be initiated against them, even all these years later." He smirked. "If you've collected copies of the _Quibbler_, Master Gellert, you know of _**her**_, don't you?"

"The young Japanese woman with the energy staff who likes dragons and other magical creatures. Luna and her father have been trying to learn that woman's identity since she first appeared in March," Grindelwald answered with a knowing smirk, and then he blinked as he realized what his guest was now implying. "She was here?!"

"She teleported them out of the cave when the vampires attacked," Duncan stated.

Harry looked at the immortal from Gleann Fhionghain. "_**Vampires?!**_"

"Daywalkers by the looks of them, Harry-kun," Tsukiko stated. "All destroyed when our mysterious friend took Elizabeth-chan and her friends away."

Luna perked. "Daywalkers, Sensei? Are you sure?"

"Even if they were in a cave and away from direct sun exposure, normal vampires would still be lethargic at this time of day, Luna-chan," the Dark Lady of the Orient said.

"Daywalkers," Duncan concluded, nodding.

"That's why he's in London."

Eyes locked on Harry, who had a knowing look on his face. "Who?" Grindelwald asked.

The Man-Who-Won smiled. "Abraham Lincoln."

* * *

Inside a rented room above a certain pub in London, that moment…

"**_AH-CHOO!_**"

"Bless you, Abraham! Are you alright?!"

The near-immortal former president of the United States of America moaned as he reached up to wipe the jarred mucus from his nose. "Someone's talking about me."

The pale-skinned man who was seated at the work desk in the rented room blinked before he sighed. "Well, let's hope it's good talk," Henry Sturges breathed out.

Hearing that from the daywalker vampire who helped train him in his private avocation as a hunter of the undead almost two centuries ago, Abraham Lincoln smirked as he held up his favourite weapon. "If it isn't, I shall be prepared, Henry."

Sturges nodded. "As you've always been." He then took a deep breath as he stood up. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have to get over to Paris."

"Be safe, old friend," Lincoln bade.

"Always."

* * *

Aboard the _Freedom_, two hours later (London time: After breakfast)…

"What can you tell me about them?"

The senior healer who had come with her team directly from the factory's control tower sighed. "A total of 4,400 Terran-turned-Avalonians, all physically about eighteen years of age. Breaking them down by nationality, forty-five percent of them are German, fifteen percent Austrian, ten percent Italian, eight percent French and Walloon-Belgian, eight percent Dutch and Flemish-Belgian, six percent Danish and Norwegian, five percent Finnish and three percent of a mixture of other nationalities. The group leader, Elizabeth Gibbon, is British." She sighed as she gazed on the group of young women as they enjoyed their first-ever meal as Avalonians. Naturally, such meals were kept to "soft" foods given the many years they had spent in storage; the healer and her team had noted the various symptoms of cryogenic hibernation sickness in all of them even if their magic and the regenerative enzymes in their own blood was moving to heal them as quickly as the damaged cells and tissues could be regrown. "The incredible part of all this is that — as far as they believe — it's supposed to be 1945. The twenty-first of June to be exact." As the watchmistress in charge of the _Freedom_ gaped, the healer added, "And they should be at a place in Germany called Nurmengard, preparing to defend it from an attack by Allied magicals and…"

"Excuse me."

Both turned as one of the just-woken women came up to join them. A pretty blonde, she had blue-green eyes and the most perfect looks either Avalonian — who were both Terran-form, having been born on the factory itself; Terran-turned-Avalonian women wouldn't have been attracted by such right away unless they had been born lesbian or bi or if the right conditions to trigger what was popularly nicknamed "the time of the month" were present — had ever seen on a female of any known humanoid species. Like the others who had just been revived from a slumber of sixty-five years, she was currently dressed in the gestation suit used to help mould non-templated bodies into their final form; quartermasters from other parts of the factory were moving to get them some normal clothes. "Yes?" the watchmistress politely asked.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful for what you're doing for us, but there are a lot of questions we need answered," she stated, her voice reflecting her Yorkshire ancestry. "What just happened to us? Last thing we remember was being at Nurmengard repelling the Allied attack there…and then we all woke up inside that cave."

"Where is this Nurmengard, anyway?" the healer wondered.

Gazing at her hosts, Elizabeth Gibbon took a deep breath. Whoever these beings were — _I'm an ALIEN now?!_ she thundered to herself once more as the unreality of the whole situation she and those technically under her charge now found themselves in nearly overwhelmed her — they clearly knew about magicals. Much to her inner delight, these beings seemed not to care a whit about that sort of thing…but then, given that Avalonians were all blessed with the ability to sense people's emotions from a distance and actually read people's thoughts by touching them — the healer had explained about that, not to mention explained about the Awakening process — magic probably didn't strike them so odd. "It's just to the northeast of Münster in Germany," the English-born _Reichsführerin der Schwarze Mädchen und Generalmajorin der Magische Reichsarmee_ then answered. "Within the Prussian province of Westphalia," she then added.

The other women nodded. "As we told you when you were all released from the capsules we found you in, this is the year 2010. The twentieth of July to be exact; it's 9:06 AM in London right now," the watchmistress stated after glancing at her iPhone. On seeing the flat rectangular device, Elizabeth had been shocked to learn that such was an actual _wireless telephone_ that was quite popular with all walks of life around the world. "As to how you got into those capsules — much less became Avalonians — we just don't know. We're tracing down the part numbers for the capsules to learn when they were removed from the factory…" — she waved forward to the open end of the hangar deck, which showed the side of the factory and cislunar space around Earth, which was in a waning crescent stage given the Sun's current position vis-à-vis the third planet and its lone natural satellite — "…to see exactly when your new bodies were first procured. Our former masters did have observers in Europe active before the Second World War, so the chances are very good that one of them DID help save all of you."

"Why?" Elizabeth then breathed out.

"Why what?" the healer asked.

"Why would _aliens_ — and aliens with obvious advanced technology at that! — be so interested in us?! Save for our magic, we would present nothing of value to them!"

The other women wanly smiled. "They effectively had no choice," the watchmistress said before she moved to explain the whole story about the natives of Phentax Two…

* * *

Level One of the Headquarters of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (located under Northumberland Avenue east of Trafalgar Square) in the City of Westminster, London, an hour later…

"Harry…if that's a joke, it's not _funny_!"

"Do I look like I'm _joking_, Perce?!" Harry asked as he gazed wearily at Percy Weasley. Both were in the latter's office; the Director of the DMLE wanted to give the Senior Undersecretary a head's up before he would brief Kingsley Shacklebolt about the return of Gellert Grindelwald's Black Maidens. "They were all there in that cave! Frozen in time for _sixty-five years_ as _**Avalonians**_ of all things…" He sighed. "And thanks to _**her**_, they're probably up aboard the bioroid factory as we speak."

The third-oldest son of Arthur and Molly Weasley shook his head as he reached into one of his desk drawers to pull out a bottle of Blishen's firewhiskey and two shot glasses. He poured a shot into each, then handed one of the cups to Harry. Both drowned the whiskey and then relaxed as the magically-charged alcohol gave them a gentle buzz. "I assume the press in Germany has already got wind of this?" Percy weakly asked.

Harry nodded. "It's already out on the MagicNet and the _Zauberwelt_ is running a special edition that'll hit the stands after lunch. According to Luna, all the people at Nurmengard have passed on the news to their home ministries. You can bet that the other major European broadsheets are going to have the return of the Schwarze Mädchen on Page One by tonight's edition. Tomorrow morning at the latest." He sighed. "As is standard procedure whenever there's an incident at Nurmengard, I reported what happened there to Supreme Mugwump Ramirez. I'm sure an emergency meeting of the ICMC will be called in a short while. How we'll approach the Avalonians, though…"

Percy shook her head. "Two steps forward, one step back," he muttered as he poured himself another shot of firewhiskey. Harry refused a second serving. "The Avalonians come to Earth and make their desire to live peacefully amongst the normals and the magicals known," he said after taking a sip of the whiskey. "Two of them saved your cousin from your uncle and aunt because of their abusing her for accidental magic…and that doesn't count what Madame Holmes did to save Rose and the other girls back in the 1980s. Then the Oni and their friends move to invade Earth and the Earth Defence Force has to go deal with them. _Hood_'s commissioning in the skies over London throws everyone into a blind panic, which forced Luna to ask Lady Negako to help restore your wives' magic and revive Dora." He smirked. "Not to mention Ginny." As Harry chuckled, his host sighed. "Bella Lestrange escapes from St. Mungo's and throws everyone into another blind panic. She gets captured thanks to Teddy and is turned into an Avalonian because of the severity of the wounds Mother and Grace gave her in '97. She's turned sane and is banished from the country as a result, going to apprentice under Lady Evangeline in Japan. Now _this_…!" He took a deep breath. "What would they do? Any ideas?"

Harry sighed. "I talked to Hermione about this. As you might know, she's been a private admirer of the Schwarze Mädchen since we started training together under Sensei." At Percy's surprised look, the Man-Who-Won smirked. "Oh, she hates the fact that they went to _Germany_ of all places to fight with the _**Nazis**_, even if Hitler and his lot hadn't initiated the Final Solution back then. Still, the fact is this: They were the first group of normal-borns to have made such a huge impact on magical society in Europe after the Statute of Secrecy was passed. Yes, their actions helped destroy the old International Confederation of Wizards; too many of that generation still despise Elizabeth Gibbon and her friends for doing that. Yes, they could be charged with the destruction of the loyalty anchor stones that enforced the rule of European magic ministries over the magicals in colonies across the planet; that was part of the deal Master Gellert made with Tsukiko-sensei when they allied with each other in 1939 to launch their wars against the ICW. Here in Britain, too many people still look on the Schwarze Mädchen as monsters. Most of Europe — those parts of Europe that were overrun by Grindelwald — feel the same way. Beyond Europe…?"

"They're respected…if not admired," the Senior Undersecretary finished, and then he sighed. "Well, let's go talk to Kingsley. This will be an interesting meeting."

Harry nodded as both rose…

* * *

The Isle of Lundy in the Bristol Channel (ninety kilometres west-southwest of Cardiff in Wales), that moment…

"Dead?"

The pale vampire bowed his head to his leader. "Yes, Adam. Wiped out to the last."

"By who?" the millennia-old daywalker — who had been one of the primary instigators of the Civil War in America during the early 1860s — calmly asked. "The Immortals?"

"No, sir. It appears this mysterious woman with the energy staff similar to Raeburn's Power Jewel — the one who's been visiting various magical enclaves on Earth and on Nerio for the last few months — was involved. That was in the reports coming now out of Nurmengard that our friends in Germany are monitoring. It's believed that the Black Maidens were all taken away into space. No doubt, they're…"

"Being turned into crystal-bloods," Adam finished as he took a deep breath. "Damn!"

"They're mudbloods, my friend," Theodore Nott stated as he sipped his firewhiskey. "I doubt someone like you would find even the dreaded _Schwarze Mädchen_…" — all the vampires in the room were quick to sense the derision in his voice on saying that — "…difficult to deal with in the long term." He then smirked. "Then again…"

"There is Azkaban," Adam finished for his host as the other vampires all smirked.

Theodore nodded. "Yes. There is Azkaban."

Rueful chuckles echoed through the reception hall as the assembled vampires, wizards and witches — who had joined together over the last month or so in an alliance to deal with the rapid transformation of human society since after the start of the year thanks to the Avalonians — all exchanged knowing looks. Watching them from his position near the grand staircase that led to the upper floor of the Nott mansion, Draco Malfoy could only smile as he sipped his firewhiskey. _What strange bedfellows necessity forces on people at times_, the Marquis of Cumbria mused to himself as he considered what he had just learned over the last week from the current Viscount of Torridge. Still, despite the potential loss of the magical power of the Black Maidens to the Avalonians — being five millennia old, Adam knew of some ancient rituals that would drain any magical of their power, transferring same to a willing recipient; it was _that_ which had aroused Draco's interest when Theo informed him of his alliance with the daywalkers — the ultimate success of their campaign against the Avalonians was still assured.

To both groups, the race of alien psychics now settling down on Earth personified the worst possible fate for them all. In the eyes of pureblood British wizards like Theo Nott and Draco Malfoy, the "muggle golems pretending to be human" had the ability to give non-magical psionic powers — the match of any master in Legilimency — that could sniff out a potential threat with gross ease. It had long been concluded that had the Avalonians been in Britain in force back in 1996 without being controlled by their Niphentaxian masters, the Death Eaters' launching of the Second Blood War could have turned into a bloody rout thanks to the aliens' weapons and their ability to sense danger from a distance; what Rose Potter and her sister Meridiana alumni did to help Harry Potter destroy the Death Eaters in 1997 had been bad enough. With the memories of the battles between the War Hawks and the American-led Liberty Legion on the "Allied" side and the Übermenschen Gruppe on the "Axis" side during Grindelwald's War in Europe and North America still fresh in the minds of older wizards — some of whom, even if they weren't here, did support Theo's alliance with Adam Sewell — a "metahuman evolution" of the muggles to the point where magic would be made irrelevant evoked the same type of wild paranoia that drove their ancestors into passing the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1689. That, of course, didn't mention things like the _Hood_…

As for the vampires such as Adam and his sister Valdoma, the Avalonians' willingness to welcome normal Terrans into their ranks via body-swapping, blood-transfusion or DNA-augmentation therapy would — if allowed to go totally unchecked — come to eventually deprive them of their primary source of _**food**_. To many of them — who had been literally run out of North America after the Civil War thanks to the Rail-Splitter, who was ultimately saved from John Wilkes Booth's attempted assassination on 14 April 1865 thanks to Josef von Taserich and the infusion of ebony mesonium into his blood in yet another "experiment" by the immortal Prussian nobleman to see if there were humans out there who could master the ultimate power of the Atom of True Life — the thought of all normal humans becoming "crystal-bloods" spelt the ultimate extermination of their kind. Like Taserich, Avalonians had particles of mesonium — though diamond-pattern — in their blood stream; these particles helped enhance their bodies' regenerative powers. Such — if ingested by a vampire — would strip said vampire of his/her special powers and restore him/her to normal humanity. And as had been proven when the infamous Angelus, Spike and Drusilla had been "returned to the sun" some months ago thanks to Avalonian-Americans who had learned of them while helping restore Sunnydale after the collapse of the Hellmouth in 2003, the mesonium in Avalonian blood _always_ reverted the recipient to the physical age s/he could have been were that person born a natural Sagussan.

Angelus — born Liam O'Connor in 1727 — was now physically a forty year-old man.

Spike — born William Pratt in 1850 — was now physically twenty-nine.

As for the woman born Drusilla Keeble in 1842, she became an Avalonian thanks to body-swapping; had she undergone DNA-augmentation, she would physically be thirty years old.

For a five _**millennia**_-old vampire like Adam Sewell, potential exposure to mesonium flowing within the veins and arteries of a "crystal-blood" was the ultimate death sentence; as the standard Avalonian lifespan only stretched out to eight centuries, those like Adam would be rendered into dust once the mesonium got into his body.

"So how soon can you prepare a force to go deal with them?" a woman asked.

Theo looked over as Camellia Matthews came up to join them. A silver-haired woman with pale blue-grey eyes that some might mistake for an albino, she was a sister Slytherin from Theo's and Draco's year at Hogwarts and the heiress of the Viscountcy of Sutton thanks to the death of her older brother Charles during "Death Eater Season" in the summer of 1997; he had been a supporter of Voldemort only to be brutally taken down by Harry Potter in mid-July of that year. Her father Orion had been avowedly neutral when it came to voting for legislation in the Wizengamot for years. He _had_ deferred to the "dark" families when sensitive matters came up in the years following the Death Eaters' near-total destruction in 1997…until Pansy Black and Mandy Potter got their magic back thanks to the Avalonians a couple weeks ago and assumed voting proxy for the Black and Potter family seats. With the "light" side now in the ascendancy, the neutrals were shifting away from supporting people like Theo and Draco…which had angered not just Camellia but several of her peers from Hogwarts.

One of them was the wizarding guest of honour at this meeting: Achelois Runcorn, the double-heiress of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Runcorn of Widnes and Collins of Halton; her maternal grandfather Pierus Collins was the head of the latter house while her father Herodotus Runcorn was head of the former. Camellia's roommate at Hogwarts throughout all their years there, Achelois — a slender woman with cinnamon-shaded hair and chocolate-brown eyes that always flashed with calculation — had been the target of potential suitors since she graduated from Hogwarts in 1998. While she did have two younger sisters — twins Cassotis and Albunea — who could take up the combined house votes separately once Pierus and Herodotus had passed on, Theo knew Achelois desired to consolidate the combined votes in herself and a potential life-mate…

…even if people who could be seen as "acceptable" life-mates — which, given that Achelois was as pure a pureblood woman as could be found in Britain, meant only those of equally pure blood — were rather thin on the hoof in Britain these days.

"We could strike very early Friday morning," Valdoma — an alluring blonde woman with hazel eyes when she was not allowing her vampiric side to take over her — noted.

"How many prisoners are there?" another vampire, Halbert Golden, asked.

"At least 2,200 people, Mister Golden," Draco answered. "The purges after the fall of Riddle were thorough and left very little of our parents' generation who supported the cause living free of Azkaban." He grimaced as a touch of real fear entered his voice. "Even better, most of them should be quite docile for you to deal with once you get the Aurors out of the way. All the ones who allied with Riddle and escaped being killed by Potter in the summer of '97 were put into _**That Place**_ thanks to that half-blood, that mudblood Granger and that Korean bitch Mun convincing the Queen to open it up."

The vampires all looked amused on hearing Draco's oblique reference to the most feared magical prison ever to exist on Earth, Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren. Located somewhere in Bodmin Moor in Cornwall where a dozen ley lines intersected, it had been inhabited for over a thousand years by the dreaded Hollows. Created from the spirits of muggles who had, so some believed, been killed by dark wizards over the centuries by an unknown mage — to the utter outrage of pureblood traditionalists, the man most often credited with Gonebren's creation was _**Salazar Slytherin**_ himself! — who had been passionately sympathetic to non-magicals, the Hollows were said to simply had no love whatsoever for magicals of _any_ stripe. Once a prisoner had been condemned to Gonebren, s/he would have his/her soul savaged via a form of mind-raping no Legilimency master or Avalonian could equal. Those sentenced to the "Maze Amongst the Rocks" — as Gonebren was often nicknamed — eventually emerged nearly brain-dead and unable to live their own lives, virtually no different than those condemned to the Dementor's Kiss.

By the time the Statute of Secrecy had gone into effect in 1692, the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries had discovered the means to somewhat tame the mysterious Dementors — according to one legend, the soul-wraiths were supposedly transformed by an unknown dark wizard from the spirits of dead wizards and witches who had died thanks to the muggles during the Dark Times of Magic as a symbolic answer of sorts to the wizard-hating Hollows — and keep them caged on an island near the Shetlands called Azkaban. With that — and thanks to a growing belief that condemning criminals to face the Hollows was a death sentence even for those guilty of minor crimes — the Wizengamot decided to open a prison on Azkaban Island. After Azkaban was formally opened in 1705, Minister for Magic Eldritch Diggory — in a show of loyalty to the Crown…which many sensible people these days considered an unbelievable act of _**idiocy**_! — presented the keys for Gonebren to Queen Anne for the Crown's use.

As was quite well-known to almost all the magicals living in Britain these days, Gonebren — whose very NAME had became something of an unofficial taboo to British wizards and witches in recent years — had been used on several occasions since Azkaban's opening.

The most recent time was in the summer of 1997 when Rufus Scrimgeour was killed and the Death Eaters moved to effectively take over Britain…only to be countered when the Queen issued an emergency Magical Royal Proclamation under Her Prerogative to declare that the new ministry of Pius Thicknesse was in a state of _rebellion_ against the Crown!

Emboldened by that, Harry Potter's and Hermione Granger's Korean-descent technomancer housemate and year-mate Mun Aesup — who, according to some sources, was currently leading a mission of exploration to the planned Vinland colony using a cloaked starship, basing herself out of some Royal Navy unit somewhere — unleashed a mesonium version of an _**atomic bomb**_ on Azkaban to wipe out the Dementors, thus robbing the Death Eaters of very powerful allies and a place to incarcerate their enemies; this had been done after she had rescued Luna Lovegood and all the other mudbloods and blood traitors that had been sent there in hopes of suppressing any attempts at rebelling against the proper order of things. What was worse, _**That Place**_ was reopened…and soon began to be filled with unmarked supporters of Voldemort such as Dolores Umbridge, to say anything of the Snatchers, the volunteer militia organized by the Death Eaters to go forth and track down mudbloods and blood traitors to remove them to Azkaban.

Those who survived "Death Eater Season" and the Battle of Hogwarts later that year would spend at least six months _there_ until Azkaban could be used again.

Theo's father Mason and Draco's father Lucius were two who had been so victimized.

For many, it had been a brutal object lesson: **_Defy the Crown at your peril!_**

Still, things could be done to restore things back to "normal"…

"Well, we wish you all luck," Achelois then said as she finished her firewhiskey before nodding her thanks as a house elf popped in to take the glass away. Rising from her chair, she walked over to offer her hand to Adam, who gave it a courtly kiss.

"Your support — even if it isn't as much as you wanted to give — is always more than appreciated, Mistress Achelois," the elder vampire stated with a polite smile.

"We fight to preserve our ways of life. Once the crystal-bloods are gone, we can finally put things aright for a change," she returned with a pleasant nod.

"Hear! Hear!" Draco called out as people raised their glasses in a toast…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) To begin, here are some basic notes on the Black Maidens and their internal structure…

The **Schwarze Mädchen** (singular **Schwarzes Mädchen**, short-title **SM**) — like other elements of the Nazi paramilitary forces such as the **Schutzstaffel** ("Protection Squads," short-title **SS**) — had their own special ranking system unique to them. I based the SM rank titles on the SS titles…though, as the Black Maidens were all women, the feminine noun ending "**-in**" was added to the term **führer** ("leader"). The rank levels (with equivalent NATO rank codes) and translations are as follows (listed from highest to lowest):

OF-6 — **Reichsführerin** ("Reich Leader")  
OF-5 — **Standartenführerin** ("Standard Leader")  
OF-4 — **Obersturmbannführerin** ("Senior Assault Unit Leader")  
OF-3 — **Sturmbannführerin** ("Assault Unit Leader")  
OF-2 — **Hauptstrumführerin** ("Chief Assault Leader")  
OF-1 (upper) — **Obersturmführerin** ("Senior Assault Leader")  
OF-1 (lower) — **Untersturmführerin** ("Lower Assault Leader")

OR-9 — **Sturmscharführerin** ("Assault Squad Leader")  
OR-8 — **Hauptscharführerin** ("Chief Squad Leader")  
OR-7 — **Oberscharführerin** ("Senior Squad Leader")  
OR-6 — **Scharführerin** ("Squad Leader")  
OR-5 — **Unterscharführerin** ("Lower Squad Leader")  
OF-4 — **Rottenführerin** ("Section Leader")  
OR-3 — **Sturmfrau** ("Assault Woman")  
OR-2 — **Oberfrau** ("Senior Woman")  
OR-1 — **Frau** ("Woman")

Of course, once the Schwarze Mädchen were mobilized as part of the **Magische Reichsarmee** ("Magical Army of the Reich," short-title **MRA**), they were given equivalent rank titles in the latter organization. Again, traditional female noun endings were added to most of the titles here, with _frau_ substituted for _mann_ ("man"). Of course, as the MRA is a **_magical_** combat force, equivalent titles to "wizard" and "witch" were used. So:

OF-6 — **Generalmajorin** ("Major General")  
OF-5 — **Oberste** ("Colonel")  
OF-4 — **Oberstleutnante** ("Lieutenant Colonel")  
OF-3 — **Majorin** ("Major")  
OF-2 — **Hauptfrau** ("Chief Woman")  
OF-1 (upper) — **Oberleutnante** ("Senior Lieutenant")  
OF-1 (lower) — **Leutenante** ("Lieutenant")

OR-9 — **Stabswachthexe** ("Staff Guard Witch")  
OR-8 — **Hauptwachthexe** ("Chief Guard Witch")  
OR-7 — **Oberwachthexe** ("Senior Guard Witch")  
OR-6 — **Wachthexe** ("Guard Witch")  
OF-5 — **Oberjagdhexe** ("Senior Hunting Witch")  
OF-4 — **Jagdhexe** ("Hunting Witch")  
OF-3 — **Sturmkampfhexe** ("Assault Combat Witch")  
OF-2 — **Oberkampfhexe** ("Senior Combat Witch")  
OF-1 — **Kampfhexe** ("Combat Witch")

So, as the **Waffen-SS** ("Armed SS") did during World War Two, the Schwarze Mädchen used as their full rank title a long phrase that incorporated their peacetime SM ranks with their wartime MRA ranks, i.e. _Reichsführerin der Schwarze Mädchen und Generalmajorin der Magische Reichsarmee_ ("Reich Leader of the Black Maidens and Major General of the Magical Army of the Reich") for **Elizabeth Gibbon**.

As an aside, the word **Reich** itself can be interpreted as meaning either "empire" or "realm"; because of that, it is often translated as "Imperial" when it appears in adjective format as noted above. When used as a noun, _Reich_ can also imply a foreign state of equal status to the various German empires/authoritarian states that have existed from 962–1806 (the **Holy Roman Empire**, later called the "First Reich"), 1871-1918 (the **German Empire**, also known as the "Second Reich" or _Deutsches Kaiserreich_) and 1933-45 (the infamous **Third Reich** of **Nazi Germany**). Naturally, because of the application of the term "Reich" in the Nazi state, the word has fallen seriously out of favour in modern Germany, only appearing in adjective format in place names like the **Reichstag** ("Diet of the Realm") building in Berlin; this was the traditional meeting hall of the Imperial German legislature from initial construction in 1894 until the infamous **Reichstag Fire** of 27 February 1933. The building itself remained in ruins until it was refurbished in 1992 after the reunification of Germany to become the meeting hall of the modern **Bundestag** ("Diet of the Republic"), the lower half of the national legislature.

2) Other translations: **Schloss** — Non-fortified castle or château; **Greifswald Bodden** — Bay of Griefswald; **Reichsminister für Magische Angelegenheiten** — Reich Minister of Magical Affairs (normally shortened to **Reichsmagieminister**), the administrative leader of the **Reichsmagieministerium** ("Reich Ministry of Magic"); **Mahō-Shōgun** — Supreme General of Magic; **Obergruppenführer** — Literally "Senior Group Leader," this was the SS equivalent rank to a four-star general (NATO rank code OF-9); **Gensui** — Literally "First Commander" though normally translated as "Marshal," this was the Imperial Japanese armed forces equivalent rank to a five-star general/admiral (NATO rank code OF-10); **Ministerpräsident** — Literally "minister-president," this is the equivalent German title to an American state governor or Canadian provincial premier; **Zauberrat** — Literally "Magical Council," this is the pre-1933 German equivalent to the British Wizengamot; **Kōkyo** — Literally "Imperial Residence," this is the proper name for the Imperial Palace in Tōkyō; **Magische Staatspolizei** — Literally "Magical State Police" and shortened to **Mastapo**, this is the pre-1945 German version of the Aurors serving the British Ministry of Magic (this was done as a play-off on the normal term **Gestapo**, which is short for _Geheime Staatspolizei_ ["Secret State Police"]); **Deutscher Gruß** — Literally "German Greeting," this is the gesture Nazis always made when saluting someone; **Vierte Bataillon** — Fourth Battalion; **Für das höhere Wohl** — Literally "For the Greater Good," which served as Gellert Grindelwald's rallying cry; **Justizvollzugsanstalt** — Literally "Institution for the enforcement of justice," this is the German title for a penitentiary; **Rittmeister** — Literally "Ride Master," this is the German cavalry rank title for an army captain (NATO rank code OF-2); **Zauberwelt** — Literally "Wizarding World," this is the title of the German version of the _Daily Prophet_.

3) **Oleg Grigorijevič Gredenko** is the full name I give to the wand-maker known to _Harry Potter_ fans simply as **Gregorovitch**, the man who possessed the Elder Wand prior to **Gellert Grindelwald** who was killed near the start of _Deathly Hallows_. As he was played by Croatian actor **Rade Šerbedžija** (born 1946), I borrowed the names from characters he portrayed in the movie _Quicksand_ and the television series _24_ to properly flesh out the wand-maker's name. As I stated in my _Icemaidens_ stories, this man always uses his patronymic as his artistic name.

4) **Uchida Ryūsei** is — as hinted above — named in partial tribute to **Uchida Ryōhei** (1873-1937), the founder of the ultra-nationalist **Black Dragon Society** (_Kokuryū-kai_) that many attribute as being the organization that prompted the launching of the Greater East Asia War (the Pacific side of World War Two) as a way of enforcing Japanese hegemony on eastern Asia.

5) Fans of _Highlander_ may recognize some of the other Immortals who came to Nurmengard when **Duncan MacLeod** and **Joe Dawson** went there. Atop **Methos** (the oldest living Immortal, who first appeared in the third-season episode of the same name) and **Amanda Darieux** (who was the central character of the spin-off series _Highlander: The Raven_; she first appeared in the _Highlander_ first season episode "The Lady and the Tiger"), there is **Carl Robinson** (who first appeared in the second-season episode "Run For Your Life"), **Robert de Valicourt** and his wife **Angelina de Valicourt** (both of whom appeared in the fourth-season episode "'Till Death"), **Erno Jocszak** and **Alicia Mackenzie** (both of whom were mentioned in the third-season episode "Courage"). Also mentioned here were **Jacob Kell** (the villain of the fourth film _Endgame_) and **Antonius Kalas** (who first appeared in the third-season episode "Song of the Executioner"). Another character referred to here was **Lynn Horton**, who is Joe Dawson's niece and the daughter of the infamous Hunter **James Horton**; the latter first appeared in the first-season episode "The Hunters" (Lynn, however, never appeared in the television series).

6) The incantation **Revideor** is based on the Latin word _revideō_ (literally "to revisit"). I chose this term as a sort of variation of the **Four-Point Spell** concept that first appeared in _Goblet of Fire_ and is more popularly known as the "Point Me" Spell. Luna's spell — known in English as the **Location Revealing Charm** — allows her magic to lock in on something of interest and seek it out.

7) Fans of _Negima_ will know of **Poyo Rainyday**; she is **Zazie Rainyday**'s elder sister. The tribal name **Daemona** is my term for the "demon-folk"; Poyo and Zazie are both members of the ruling family of that particular group of shape-shifters. Poyo first appeared at the end of the _Negima_ manga story "Ala Alba, Charge!" (manga episode #294). The **griffin-dragon** mentioned by Luna is the same type of beast that first appeared in the "Magical Girl Yūe" extra episode of the 2009-10 _Mahō Sensei Negima! Mō Hitotsu no Sekai_ OVA series.

8) A **Watchmistress** (male term **Watchmaster**) is a junior officer on a Sagussan warship.

9) The **Abraham Lincoln** who appears here is the character that appears in the 2010 biographical historical novel _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_ (ISBN 978-0-446-56308-6). Appearing with him in this part is his friend and mentor, **Henry Sturges**. **Adam Sewell** is the chief villain of the movie version of _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_. His family name is my creation; I based it on the British actor who portrayed him in the film, **Rufus Sewell** (born 1967). His sister **Valdoma** also appeared in the _AL:VH_ movie.

10) As fans of the _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ television series will remember, **Angelus** (AKA **Angel**), **Spike** and **Drusilla** were all demon-possessed vampires that were encountered from time to time by the Slayer and her friends. Unlike the "daywalker" vampires from _AL:VH_, vampires hunted by the Slayers were effectively soulless shells possessed by extra-dimensional beings who wanted to make themselves the apex hunter in the worldwide food-chain. However, the souls of their normal selves were — as I see it — deeply suppressed in the subconscious mind of the vampire; how was it possible, after all, for the human souls of people like Angel or Spike to be restored to full control over the body either by gypsy magical ritual (in the former case) or a cerebral microchip (in the latter case)?

As an aside, the family name for Angel's human-self is my invention; he was never given such in _BTVS_.

11) **Camellia Matthews** (and her father **Orion Matthews**), **Achelois Runcorn** (as well as her maternal grandfather **Pierus Collins**, father **Herodotus "Hero" Runcorn** and younger sisters **Cassotis Runcorn** and **Albunea Runcorn**) and **Mun Aesup** are all characters I used in the _Icemaidens_ stories; I created the first version of them in the short story _A Technomancer's Drabble_ for the Yahoo Group website of one of my favourite authors, **Seel'vor**. I based them originally on three of the unnamed characters that were on JKR's class list which she showed to the audience in the BBC 2001 Christmas special _Harry Potter and Me_ as they were written out in an early reprint of that list; it should be noted that the name "Matthews" never appeared in later reprints of that list. As I mentioned in _Harry Potter and the Icemaidens_, I modified the character of "Moon" into a Korean-Briton ("moon" is one of the alternate Romanization spellings of the Korean term **mun**, which means "door" or "gate" and is written as **門** in hanja or **문** in han'gŭl) in tribute to the time I lived in the Land of the Morning Calm from 1996-2005. Of course, the personal histories of Camellia, Achelois, Aesup and their relatives vary differently from the _Icemaidens_ series as the concept of the **Magical Sheriff** introduced in that series doesn't exist in the universe of this story.

12) **Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren** — and the **Hollows** who inhabit it — were first mentioned in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_.


	2. Hermione Goes to Meet Her Heroes

The borough of Halton in Cheshire, a home south of Halton Castle just off the Northway, lunchtime…

"Is this true, Lisa? You're not trying to pull an old man's leg, are you?!"

A light smile crossed the face of the beautiful blonde woman with the dark blue-grey eyes as she gazed on her elderly host. "It's true, Ryan," Lisa Turpin stated, her voice strongly flecked with the Lowlands accent she had been born with. "The Schwarze Mädchen are all alive. Somehow — according to Luna Lovegood, _Freiherr_ von Taserich might have been involved in this — their spirits were preserved from Death's embrace at the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard and they were all reborn as Avalonians. However, due to some complication with the gestation chambers, they've been trapped in suspended animation since that fight. They were only just discovered this morning thanks in part to the Immortals; they gathered there today to pay tribute to their friends who died at the Battle of the Gates."

Hearing that, the aged wizard — in physical looks, Pierus Collins always reminded Lisa of the late American actor Jack Palance as he appeared in films like _Batman_ and _City Slickers_ — blinked before he slowly lowered himself into the lounger in the middle of his reading room. The Collins home — which was quite modern as wizarding homes came; Lisa had learned everything about her host after she had joined the Department of Mysteries in the wake of her graduating from Ravenclaw in 1998 with top NEWTs in charms and transfiguration, which she later expanded on to gain masteries in spell-crafting — was virtually no different than the other homes located around the sandstone hill where the normal Barons of Halton had maintained their keep until the Fifteenth Century.

Unlike other pureblood wizarding clans, the Collinses of Halton had never really lost touch with their non-magical neighbours and had, for the most part, maintained strong links with the normal world. Such relations had prompted the patriarch of the clan to make sure that everything close to him was shielded when Voldemort had begun to rampage across Britain in the 1970s; Pierus — who had been three years ahead of Tom Riddle — saw all of the modern-day borough of Halton layered with special wards that deflected everything from the Trace which tracked underage wand usage to portkeys and attempts at apparition by those magicals who had not been keyed into the wards to the Dark Mark itself. That ensured that — unlike some other families that had been torn apart by the First Purification War like the Blacks — the Collinses and their neighbours across the River Mersey, the Runcorns of Widnes, survived intact…and were able to effectively contribute to the success of "Death Eater Season" in the summer of 1997 when Harry Potter declared all-out war on Voldemort and his allies.

However, even if there had been no deaths in either clan, the Purification Wars had taken a toll on both the Collinses and the Runcorns. Albert Runcorn — who had allied with Dolores Umbridge when they moved to create a "muggleborn registry" when Pius Thicknesse was made to become Minister for Magic in the wake of Rufus Scrimgeour's assassination — was thrown into Gonebren in early July that year, which destroyed the man; he was currently incarcerated in Azkaban. His "betrayal" of his family's long-standing pro-normal-born stance broke the heart of his cousin Herodotus, Pierus' son-in-law. That effectively forced Pierus' daughter Napaeae to resign from a well-paying job in the Invisibility Task Force to care for her husband full-time. That ultimately wrecked the influence the Runcorns had in the Wizengamot…which — if what Lisa had recently learned about Pierus' elder granddaughter was even the LEAST bit true! — could help swing things back to the bad old days before the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Where are they?" he then asked.

"According to the last report I got before I came here, they've been most likely moved to the bioroid factory in orbit around the Moon," the newly-ennobled Baroness of Brechin replied. Like her year-mates Hermione Granger, Kevin Entwhistle, Dean Thomas and Justin Finch-Fletchley in concerns with what wealth their magical ancestors once possessed, Lisa had been able to claim her maternal family fortune on reaching her majority sometime after the Battle of Hogwarts. While she didn't really care at all about the Wizengamot — back when she was a student, she saw the legislative body as being SO broken, it only deserved to be consigned to the history books — she was glad that she could now add her voice to the reform movement that had been reborn when Pansy Black and Mandy Potter regained their magic. And while the traditionally "dark" lords like Draco Malfoy sneered at the "uppity half-blood upstart" when she swore her magical oath to serve in the Wizengamot in a special session the Wednesday after the Defunct Lords Act was tossed into the rubbish heap, others had been happy to welcome one of the brightest students to come out of Hogwarts in recent years amongst their ranks.

Especially since Lisa had possessed a powerful patron in Pierus Collins — who had sung her praises to the skies every chance he could — since her graduation from school.

Of course, there was nothing improper about their relationship. Pierus' wife Delilah — a Canadian from Prince Edward Island who came to Britain after her graduating from the Institute of Science and Magic, the Dominion's primary magic school on the Sibley Peninsula near Thunder Bay in Ontario, to help with the reconstruction of European magical enclaves after Grindelwald's War — passed on after the turn of the millennium. Pierus' loyalty to his beloved "Josie" — the nickname came from Delilah's middle name "Josephine" — was ironclad and all those who personally knew the man understood that he would NEVER contemplate betraying her even after she had died. Atop that, Lisa was simply too professional a magical researcher to allow a passionate affair with a dashing older man to get in the way of her work; it was only the influence of the politics of old that saw Daphne Greengrass — whom Lisa did respect and saw as a friend — become Ian Boot's number two in the Department of Mysteries in recent years. And while Lisa was permitted to call Pierus "Ryan" — his middle name — when they were in private, she respected and cared for the older man enough to honour his wishes.

He breathed out as he gazed up at the chandelier-covered ceiling of his reading room. "Well, if there was any person on the planet who could have saved Lizzie's people, the _Rittmeister_ would have done it," he said as he reached over to a small box on the table beside his lounger. "I never told you that, did I?" he then asked.

She hummed. "Brigadier Gibbon…" — she always addressed Elizabeth Gibbon by the equivalent British title to her rank in the Magische Reichsarmee — "…graduated from Hogwarts in 1938. You were a second year in her NEWT year." Her eyes then twinkled as she gazed upon him. "You had a crush on her?" she teased.

"On both her and her twin sister," he admitted as he opened the box, drawing out a beautiful pendant. "Take a look at her," he bade as he handed it over.

Noting the pendant was of the type that enclosed a picture, Lisa flipped it open…and then gaped in awe. "Oh, Morganna…!" she breathed out. "She's gorgeous!"

"And given that she'll have an Avalonian body now, Lizzie and Jess will be even MORE beautiful," Pierus said with a chuckle. "Who knows! When you meet them, you just might become soul-bonded to one of them!" As her cheeks flamed in embarrassment, he winked. "Or is there something you haven't told me yet," he teased back.

The Terran-turned-Avalonian magical researcher smirked as she handed the pendant back. "No, I haven't found the right person to become _marei'cha_ with," she stated. "I told you this just after Alice Holmes arranged for my body-swap in March, Ryan! The instant I get a soul-mate, you'll be the first to know!" She wagged her finger at him.

He mock-ducked that scolding stare before taking a deep breath as he put the pendant away. "I do worry about you, Lisa," he then admitted. "You know I promised your father that I'd watch out for you." As she nodded — David Turpin had died in the same attack that had killed his wife Tasha; Lisa's pureblood father had been targeted for his "blood treason" — in understanding, he then smirked. "Maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

He took a deep breath. "Maybe it's time to force a few things," Pierus mused. "Much that Kingsley and Harry and Percy have worked their arses off to force some necessary changes on our society, as long as the Wizengamot is still the way it is…"

"I've known that for years," Lisa admitted. "Yes, I was glad to take my oath to serve in that chamber last week…but I've secretly long wished that the Queen had used one of those Magical Royal Proclamations she issued in 1997 to _**disband**_ the Wizengamot to clear the way for something more egalitarian." She then smirked as she added, "Once that was done, idiots like Malfoy would have had to WORK for a change!"

Pierus cackled as he recalled the small monthly stipend paid to him and other members of the Wizengamot as a sort of "salary" for their public service to the magicals of the United Kingdom; that had been voted into place in the wake of Grindelwald's War. While he did honour all the good work his family had done as one of the "Seven and Ten" in both the modern Wizengamot and the old Wizards Council since the Norman invasion of 1066, he understood where Lisa was coming from. The Wizengamot's normal counterpart in Parliament, the House of Lords, had undergone many reforms in recent years, especially in 1999 when the dead weight of many hereditary peers had been legislated away to cut down the numbers who could sit in the Lords Chamber at the Palace of Westminster. Even more, the judicial functions of the upper house of Parliament were stripped away the previous October when the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom began its work; prior to that, a group in the upper chamber called the "Lords of Appeal in Ordinary" served as the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom. And while the Wizengamot was nowhere near as bloated — at full strength on its modern founding in 1705, there were sixty-nine members of the magical legislative body — as their counterparts up the Thames, the magical lords of Britain were also often forced to perform administrative or executive functions in the Ministry of Magic…and that didn't count the fact that the Wizengamot ALSO served as the ONLY magical judicial court in all of Britain!

"What do you have in mind?" Lisa then asked as she sensed something inside her friend.

Pierus took a deep breath. "Is she committing treason against the Crown?"

Hearing that, the young researcher felt a chill run through her bones on sensing the _**finality**_ in his words. She knew Pierus was asking about Achelois. His younger granddaughters — Cassotis and Albunea had been a year behind Achelois; the former was a Ravenclaw, the latter a Hufflepuff — hadn't given a damn about the blood politics that had fuelled Voldemort's two attempts at conquering Britain. But Achelois had been a member of the Serpents' Den when it had been under the effective control of Draco Malfoy and his clique; before the Battle of Hogwarts, one couldn't be a Slytherin without at least paying lip-service to the pureblood agenda. Yes, there were people from that house who had risen above such nonsense; one only had to look at Daphne Greengrass and Blaise Zabini, even Pansy Parkinson-Black. But even if the Death Eaters had supporters in all the houses of Hogwarts during the 1980s and 1990s, the heart of what Voldemort had championed for years had beaten the strongest in Slytherin…and Lisa knew Achelois hadn't really developed the emotional strength to think for herself and give vent to what ambition and cunning had seen her sorted to the Serpents' Den in the first place.

"Willingly, no," she finally declared. "But she's always been more of a follower than a leader. She never could really resist Draco Malfoy's influence. Atop that, she's like Harry himself: The heiress of two top-tier seats in the Wizengamot. She's been wooed and courted by prospective mates since before she graduated. That makes her feel quite privileged, practically in the same vein as how Malfoy himself felt thanks to his father spoiling him like he did. If Malfoy's planning something — and no doubt, he is; he's not going to stand seeing the Wizengamot swing fully over to Harry's side thanks to Mandy and Pansy getting their magic back — she'll support it. Even at the risk of drawing the Queen's wrath all over her like what happened to her cousin."

Hearing that, he weakly nodded. Despite how upset he was at Achelois, Pierus knew how much she had cared for her "Uncle Albert"; learning that the DMLE special investigator had been imprisoned in _**Gonebren**_ for his acts of treason to the Crown had nearly destroyed her. "A pity that when she blew up Azkaban with that meson bomb, Aesup didn't permanently wreck the island," he mused. "I always believed Gonebren was the better place to deal with criminals and traitors; it was a more efficient deterrent against that sort of behaviour." He then took a deep breath. "I may not have much time left, Lisa. You know that. And I am disappointed in Achelois. While I'd never do what that idiot Crouch did with his traitor son in the 1980s, I don't want to see any of my grandchildren incarcerated for being stupid." His dark eyes then focused on her. "I think you can figure out a way to save Achelois from herself, can you?"

She blinked before nodding. It wasn't as profound as a magical Life Debt, but she did owe the man before her a lot. "I'll think of something, Ryan," she promised…

* * *

London, the Ministry of Magic, fifteen minutes later…

"Welcome back, Lisa."

"Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod…!"

Lisa blinked on hearing that mile-a-minute chanting from Hermione Granger before she looked over to watch the female member of the Golden Trio pace around her private office, acting almost akin to how she behaved when Gilderoy Lockhart had been their DADA teacher in their second year. She then took a deep breath before she gazed on her co-worker from the Department of Mysteries. "She got the news?" she teased.

"Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod…!"

"What the hell do you think, Lisa?!" Daphne Greengrass moaned as she, Lì Sǔ, Luna Lovegood, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott watched in amusement as Hermione endured a panic attack, complete with pulling of her bushy hair and pacing to and fro. "She's been a fan of the Schwarze Mädchen ever since she first learned of them thanks to Lady Tsukuyomi. Finding out that some of her greatest heroes are ALIVE…!"

"Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod…!"

Lisa moaned. "_**PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!**_" she barked out.

Hermione screamed out before her body suddenly locked up and she collapsed onto her back, unable to move anything — even her jaw — thanks to Lisa's wandless use of the Full Body-Bind Curse; mastering their magic without the need of wands had been one of the things the members of the Defence Association had learned in Lisa's sixth year while Harry Potter had been under the personal tutelage of Yomigawa Tsukiko and Nekane Springfield. As the other women gaped in awe at the blonde Ravenclaw — it was a VERY brave person who ever tried to curse Hermione Granger! — Lisa walked over to stand to the normal-born woman's side. "_Finite_!" she barked out the cancellation spell before she put her fists on her hips. "'Mione, I personally don't think that Brigadier Gibbon would appreciate you acting like some screaming fan-girl around her!" she scolded as Hermione angrily glared at her. "Get your bloody act together, you idiot! If you want to go to the factory and meet the woman, act like you did when you were the brains that made sure Harry survived his fights with Riddle, for Morganna's sake!"

A jolt ran through Hermione…and then she breathed out. "Thanks, Lisa. I needed that."

"She learns," Luna stated as Lisa leaned down to help Hermione back on her feet.

"So what's the news?" Susan then wondered as the others came into the office, Hannah moving to close and lock the door behind them. As Hermione moved to sit at her desk — the others knew that the anti-animagus and other counter-eavesdropping wards she had put around her place of work were always active; there was just no way in hell that Rita Skeeter could ever penetrate into THIS place — and sip a soothing cup of tea, the others relaxed in the guest chairs. "Has Kingsley made a decision?"

"No, not yet," Hermione stated. "He's going to meet with Ambassador Holmes later today to discuss the issue. Thanks to the Vinur Drekar, every Avalonian on the factory most likely know that 4,400 of their missing sisters have been found alive and well."

"Oh! You call her _that_?!" Luna asked.

Hermione smirked as she tried not to roll her eyes. "It's a lot better than just using a simple pronoun to describe that woman. Besides, wasn't she involved in that incident with those thirty girls that were on that Niphentaxian destroyer that came to Earth last week? The ship that was controlled by some android son of the man who wanted to own all the _Haida_'s and _Yamato_'s commissioning crews?"

"True, she was," the daughter of the owner of the _Quibbler_ stated with an approving nod; she personally hadn't cared for that poor woman to just be called "_**her**_" in the first place…but had been forced to play along when the _Daily Prophet_ and other European daily broadsheets began using that simple pronoun to describe that person. "And I hope she will finally be able to persuade her friends to stop hiding themselves. Especially given the fact that our friend's bonding programming has activated and she now views Moroboshi Ataru as her future soul-mate," she added with a grin.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Merlin! You're kidding us, right?!" Sǔ exclaimed.

"It's true," Luna affirmed. "She even wrote him a beautiful letter confessing her heart to him. I won't say anything more, of course; it IS private correspondence between Ataru and our wonderful dragon-lover, after all." As the others giggled on hearing that — even if Luna had long earned the nickname "Loony" because of her odd worldview, she had ALWAYS adhered to proper press ethics when she did her work for her father's news magazine…which put her heads-and-shoulders above muckrakers like Skeeter — the magical naturalist from Devon sighed. "So, Hermione…when will you go up to the bioroid factory to meet your favourite heroines? Today, I hope."

Hermione gaped. "Luna! I just can't barge up there and…!"

"Hermione, think about it," Luna cut her off. "Much that I'm grateful to _Freiherr_ von Taserich for what he probably did to save all their lives, those poor women have been effectively cut off from the outside world for SIXTY-FIVE years! Never mind the shock of finding out they're literally ALIENS on their own home planet now! How will they adopt to things like computers, cell phones and everything else we take for granted?!"

"What if they're charged for war crimes?" Hannah demanded. "Yes, what they did when it came to the loyalty stones they destroyed in the 1940s was the right thing, but…!"

"Hannah, the organization the Schwarze Mädchen fought to destroy in that war has been effectively gone since early 1946," Luna cut in. "The organization that replaced the ICW passed a private member's binding resolution in 1950 that exonerated their actions in that war. Yes, most of the countries of Western Europe — even neutral nations like Ireland, Switzerland and Sweden — voted against that, but that resolution was PASSED! The Ministry is legally bound to respect that resolution. Atop that, they were declared dead at the end of Grindelwald's War! Yes, their spirits survived as Avalonians…but as I just said, it's been SIXTY-FIVE years since the Battle of the Gates! Why on Earth should we try to drudge up all that silly nonsense…even if, to Brigadier Gibbon and her friends, it practically was yesterday?!"

"They were reported to have helped hunt down senior Nazis after Hitler killed himself and they were free of the loyalty oath they were forced to make to him," Hermione added; she had learned that from Gellert Grindelwald via Yomigawa Tsukiko. "People like Bormann and Himmler, for example. So they certainly weren't the racist idiots that some people who've long loved to draw connections between Master Gellert and the Nazis have always painted them as. Yes, they didn't care for the cultures they were blindly dragged into when they were invited to attend schools like Hogwarts…but that didn't mean they wanted to slaughter every staleblood idiot who crossed their path."

"Atop that, there is the issue of the vampires," Luna breathed out.

Hannah tensed. "WHAT vampires, Luna?!"

"Well, when the Vinur Drekar came down to Nurmengard to get the Schwarze Mädchen out of their gestation tubes, a whole slew of daywalker vampires tried to attack her." As the others gasped in shock, Luna added, "Of course, the Vinur Drekar was a 'crystal-blood' and didn't care to deal with such creatures, so she disintegrated them with her lovely staff." She then nodded. "She was very neat in doing that, I have to say."

"Oh, Merlin…!"

Eyes locked on Hannah. "What is it?" Susan asked her best friend.

The blonde café worker took a deep breath. "We have to go to the Leaky Cauldron."

"Why?!" Sǔ asked.

"Abraham Lincoln's here," Hannah replied.

The others all gaped at her, even Luna. "_**President Lincoln?!**_" Hermione croaked.

"Yeah! He came in last week and has been staying at the Cauldron since," Hannah stated with a shake of her head. "He didn't tell Tom or me why he was here…but given what he did during the Score and Four, it's quite bloody obvious."

The others exchanged looks. Hermione then stood. "Let's go!"

* * *

The City of Westminster, the Leaky Cauldron on Charing Cross Road, minutes later…

A knock echoed on the door of one guest room. "Yes?!"

"Mister Lincoln?!" a voice called out. "Can I come in?!"

The door was telekinetically unlocked. "Come in, Miss Abbott!"

The door was opened, allowing Hannah to step inside. Standing by the window of his room — he had been gazing out into Diagon Alley when the goddaughter of the Cauldron's owner had knocked — the nearly-immortal sixteenth president of the United States smiled…before an eyebrow arched. "You know I don't care to be hounded by autograph seekers, Miss Abbott," Abraham Lincoln said with a teasing smirk. "Reminds me too much of all the damned office-seekers I had to deal with when I was in Washington years ago."

"We wouldn't think of doing something like that after all you've endured, Mister President," Hermione Granger said as the others came into the room. After Hannah closed the door and magically locked it — which made the vampire hunter blink — the normal-born from West Sussex proceeded to do introductions. Once that was done, she then asked, "Sir, was there some reason you came to Britain?"

He gazed at her before he walked over to sit down at the work desk set close to his bed. "Your reputation has preceded you, Miss Granger. The most brilliant student to have graduated from Hogwarts in recent years; you even outstripped Mister Potter's late mother when it comes to masteries." As he waved his guests over to relax themselves on the bed or the small couch set off to one side of the room, that lanky grin of his came back. "Then again, you had Lady Tsukiko to help teach you some things when the ICMC decided enough was enough in 1996 and asked her and young Miss Springfield to help your friend properly prepare himself for his final confrontation with Tom Riddle."

"Which I was more than grateful for," Hermione stated as she tried not to blush on sensing the powerful yet friendly empathic aura the man was projecting. She knew Abraham Lincoln wouldn't ever dream of taking advantage of other people with the psionic powers the meson — originally ebony, later de-crystalized to ruby thanks to Dean Raeburn in 1889 — in his bloodstream gave him. After the agonies of the Civil War, a lifetime hunting the undead to assuage a childhood desire for vengeance at the murder of his mother Nancy in 1818, plus his being made near-immortal thanks to Josef von Taserich just before he "died" at the hands of John Wilkes Booth in 1865, the Rail-Splitter couldn't bring himself to do something so heinous. "Sir, I know I've no right to intrude on your personal business, but it's known — thanks to Luna — that you rarely travel beyond your home in the Greasy Grass Settlement these days unless you feel that some daywalker vampire like the one who killed your mother has stepped way out of line and needs to be put down. Luna has some information that might help you."

Lincoln perked. "Miss Lovegood?"

"There was a platoon of daywalkers spotted at Nurmengard this morning," Luna announced.

Silence.

"Nurmengard?" the vampire hunter breathed out. "Why there? Mister Grindelwald is getting on in years and he's not as blessed as I am with meson in his blood."

"The Schwarze Mädchen were the true targets; they survived the Battle of the Gates, but were kept in cryogenetic suspension in a cave on the west side of Nurmengardberg," Luna stated. "However, when the vampires came on the scene, they discovered that all those women were now Avalonians. No doubt, Brigadier Gibbon and her friends were saved by your own patron in 1945 with the unwilling help of the Niphentaxians who were in Europe at the time. His sympathy to normal-borns is well known to you, I believe." At his nod, she then smiled. "Before they got the chance to taste their blood and suffer a very _fatal_ form of meson poisoning, the Vinur Drekar came down to destroy the vampires, then whisk the Schwarze Mädchen away, most likely to the bioroid factory."

More silence.

"Ah!" Lincoln said. "So she's still doing good deeds. Good for her!"

His guests gaped. "You've met her?!" Hannah demanded.

He chuckled. "She came to the Settlement in mid-April when she discovered a plot by some idiot to capture sasquatches who were visiting my friend Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake from their village in northwest British Columbia and have them exposed to normal people to settle the whole 'Bigfoot' debate once and for all." As all the witches gasped — sasquatches and other such near-humanoid beings like the yeti of the Himalayas were protected magical sentient species under ICMC law as they were distantly related to the frost giants of the Arctic — on hearing that, Lincoln smiled. "She appeared out of nowhere, blasted this fellow and his friends before they could launch their ambush, then tied them up for the law enforcement authorities to get their hands on."

"Did you learn anything about her, sir?" Lisa asked.

"Pretty much what Miss Lovegood and her father have long concluded about her, Miss Turpin," he answered. "She's an Avalonian, Terran-turned. Originally Japanese, from northeast Shikoku given her accent. She's a Zoroastrian in all aspects, which struck me as quite odd, but she is respectful of other faiths. I hear Mister Hagrid really likes her."

"She stopped five attempts at dragon poaching known to Father and his staff," Luna provided. The daughter of the owner of the _Quibbler_ met the former American president in the summer of 1994 when she and her father Xenophilius had gone to hunt down a snorkack sighting at the Greasy Grass Settlement. There, they learned of "He Who Slays Walking Carrion," who resided in a remote corner of the magical native American village straddling the tri-state border between the Dakotas and Minnesota on both shores of the Red River of the North. Knowing the phrase "walking carrion" was the standard native American term for vampires — and knowing that true Slayers were always young _**women**_! — Xenophilius and Luna went off to investigate…and got a chance to meet an immortal legend. That had been quite the exposé in the _Quibbler_ and publications for non-human magicals such as _The News of the Magical World_…though many readers of the _Quibbler_ found it hard to believe that a MUGGLE MAN of all things could be so feared by vampires of all stripes, even the demon-powered beings like the infamous Angelus. "She's done a lot of things, both here on Earth and on Nerio."

"Not surprising," Lisa mused.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"It's the basic creed of Zoroastrianism, 'Mione. 'Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.'"

The normal-born from Crawley blinked before she nodded. "Right…" She then hummed. "Odd that a girl from _Japan_ of all places would embrace **that** faith."

"That struck me as odd as well, Miss Granger," Lincoln noted. "I asked her about that. After a little prodding, she confessed that — where she comes from — she first learned of Master Zaraϑuštra's philosophy via a copy of the role playing game _Dungeons and Dragons_." As Hermione and Luna gaped and the other women blinked in confusion, he chuckled. "That surprised me. She was embarrassed to admit that, but she then said that when she came here from wherever she hails from, she learned there were many others who worship Ahura Mazdā and she went out to look in on them. Soon enough, she began reading the Avesta and started seeing the truth behind what she had first learned in a role playing game. Soon enough, she converted over — she said her parents were Roman Catholics — and desires to undergo a proper navjote when she can get the chance. However, her friends…" He shrugged. "It all depends on them and whatever is happening to them."

The others nodded before Susan perked. "What's a 'role playing game?'"

"It's…a long story, Susan," Hermione advised after taking a deep breath, once more finding herself wishing that the old Muggle Studies course at Hogwarts when she and her peers had gone through the school had not been so backward and out of date.

_Then again_, she mused to herself. _Is it wise for people to learn_ that_…?!_

* * *

Sutton Coldfield (outside of Birmingham), a house on Streely Lane in Sutton Park, an hour after lunch…

"Dear God, Pierus! Are you JOKING?!"

"I wish I wasn't, Orion. I wish to God I wasn't…"

Staring at the older man now seated across from him in his living room, Orion Matthews tried not to scream in outrage over what had just been revealed about Pierus Collins' granddaughter…which, as the current Viscount of Sutton knew, would automatically involve his oldest daughter. "So that brat Malfoy isn't going to just lay down and die finally?!" the balding brown-haired man with the pale blue eyes snarled before shaking his head. "I wish to God that Narcissa had poisoned that idiot when she found out about her daughter…though it took her bloody long enough to do that, for Merlin's sake! Even if Raven is now lovers with Arthur Weasley's youngest son, she's got a much better head on her shoulders than her brother." He then chuckled. "Then again, the teachers at Meridiana were always a better lot than what we dealt with, eh?"

"Oh, there're good and bad teachers no matter where you go," the older man mused before he sipped the wine that had been offered to him by Orion's wife Diana. The latter — who had been ennobled as the Baroness of Coldfield after the Defunct Lords Act had been removed from the magical law rolls — was a normal-born Hufflepuff who had been a peer of the Marauders, Lily Evans and Severus Snape, attending Hogwarts from 1971 to 1978. She attracted the attention of Orion — he was a year older than she — early on even if he had been a Slytherin pureblood. Showing friendship to a "mudblood" back in those days could have earned him the ire of the Death Eaters hadn't Pierus' daughter Napaeae — who had also become close friends to the-then Diana Faulkner — arranged to have her father shield Birmingham from Voldemort as he had done to northern Cheshire.

That hadn't spared the Matthewses from the ugly ravages of the Purification Wars, however. Orion's oldest son Charles — despite his half-blood status; his ancestry made him effectively the same as Harry Potter himself! — had been marked in his seventh year at Hogwarts, recruited thanks to Draco Malfoy at Voldemort's prompting to find a way to get through the magical shielding that sealed off all of metropolitan Birmingham from the reach of the Death Eaters. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to gain control of those wards. Within an hour of Azkaban being rendered lifeless thanks to Mun Aesup at the start of the summer holidays in 1997, the Queen's proclamation declaring a state of magical rebellion was read out over the Wizarding Wireless Network — seized by Orion and Diana with help from Pierus, his wife Delilah, daughter Napaeae and son-in-law Herodotus, not to mention some friends — which galvanized the wand wizards in Britain into action and turned them wholesale against Voldemort and his people. Atop that, the news of the reopening of Gonebren — thanks to the imprisonment of Dolores Umbridge and Albert Runcorn by the Boy-Who-Lived, who had been given the keys to the Maze Amongst the Rocks by the Queen for the duration of the emergency — marked the raising of the black flag by Voldemort's enemies. From that point on, no mercy or quarter would be shown to those who bore the Dark Mark or those who supported them.

Death Eater Season had been declared "open."

And there would be no bag limit.

Even worse, an old enemy of traditional British wizarding society — one who had been training the Boy-Who-Lived and his allies during the 1996-97 school year despite all of Albus Dumbledore's attempts at blocking access to Harry out of some mistaken belief that the lad's power of love ALONE would be enough to deal with Voldemort once and for all — decided to add a little spice to the Second Purification War…

…and demonstrated yet again how ultimately _**stupid**_ it was to piss off the Dark Lady of the Orient…

* * *

_Chalcot Wood (ten kilometres east of south from Birmingham), just northeast of the M40/M42 interchange, Sunday 13 July 1997, after dawn… _

_"Have you got through to that thing yet?!" _

_A grunt responded from the former Unspeakable who was trying to lance through the layers of protective spells that blocked him from destroying the ward stone located close to the wide sweep of concrete and asphalt that allowed muggles in their ghastly, noisy automobiles to move on and off the motorways that connected metropolitan Birmingham north to Worcester, southwest to Bristol and southeast to London. "This thing is a lot harder than the normal run of ward stones, Charles," Augustus Rookwood growled as he tried not to glare at the idiot half-blood who had been recruited into Voldemort's forces at the spring solstice thanks to what the Death Eaters and their Snatcher allies were being forced to do here and in a few other places across the United Kingdom now to get at those they wanted finally destroyed. "Didn't you learn ANYTHING from your father as to how these damned things were set up?!" _

_"No!" Charles Matthews admitted. "I wasn't able to corner Father about these wards before the Dark Lord ordered Scrimgeour killed! He didn't speak much to me since I took the Mark!" He then blinked as his pale eyes widened. "No…!" _

_"He probably knew you were marked," Nicholas Scabior stated from nearby. The current leader of the Snatchers, he barely escaped either being killed or sent to That Place when several of his friends had dragged in a large group of mudbloods to the Ministry at the start of the month…only to be caught when allies of that Korean bitch Mun Aesup — including Charles' blood-traitor father and mudblood mother! — seized the Wizarding Wireless Network to read the Queen's proclamation declaring Pius Thicknesse's ministry illegal and unworthy of recognition either by the Crown or the International Conference of Magical Communities. At that time, Scabior and his team had been up north in Scotland searching for mudbloods to send them to Azkaban…which had been DESTROYED by Mun thanks to a MESON BOMB of all things, killing off all the Dementors along the way! "These wards must be attuned to the Dark Mark!" he added. "Augustus' friends couldn't get into this damned town twenty years ago and they're still…!" _

_A horse's bray then echoed through the thick trees of the wood. _

_Everyone paused on hearing that before they looked around to find where that noise had come from. Of course, given the density of Chalcot Wood, visibility was restricted even if the noise from the nearby motorways echoed through the trees. "There's no horse farm close to here!" David Bancroft, Scabior's second-in-command in charge of the Snatchers, said. "Where the hell did that come from?! Can anyone see anything?!" _

_"I can't!" Jennifer Clegg stated as she drew her wand… _

_…just as a miasmic fog began to seep between the trees towards them. _

_As the Death Eaters and their allies all blinked in confusion — being British-born, they were used to the rapid changes of the weather in their homeland…but THIS was too sudden even for the English Midlands! — the braying noise of more horses echoed all around them. Listening to that sound, Rookwood blinked as he tried to determine what sort of equine it was…before his skin paled as the snarling echo in that braying clicked in, making him remember very dark tales from his childhood… _

_…and what happened to his granduncle Algernon in India during Tsukuyomi's War. _

_"Nightmares…!" he hissed out. _

_Everyone gaped at him. "What?!" Clegg cried out. _

_"Nightmares, Jenni!" Rookwood exclaimed as he stood, scanning around for the source of those hideous noises, now accompanied by the thunder of hoof beats on soft ground indicative of a troop's worth of riders coming their way. "That means…!" _

_"_**POTENTIO MUTIPLO MORSMORDRE CRUCIO!**_" _

_All the marked Death Eaters, including Augustus Rookwood and Charles Matthews, howled with agony as faint bolts of crimson energy lashed out from a half-dozen places all around them. As they collapsed to their knees, grabbing their left arms as they tried to fight off the horrid, scalding pain ripping through their bodies through their Dark Marks, the Snatchers all levelled their wands at the possible source-points of those Cruciatus curses. "SNATCH THE BASTARDS!" Scabior snarled out. "_**STUPEFY!**_" _

_Bolts of stunning energy lashed out…to no apparent effect; the torture curses on the Dark Marks continued on as the Death Eaters screamed out in agony. "Where the hell are they?!" Bancroft snarled. "I can't see a damned thing in this soup!" _

_"You weren't supposed to, staleblood." _

_The balding, middle-aged man slowly turned… _

_…before the business end of a rather LARGE key struck his chest. _

_"_**GONEBREN, 'A' BLOCK!**_" _

_Bancroft howled as he vanished in a flash of light. Hearing the name of That Place, the other Snatchers screamed out in mortal terror as they realized they were facing someone who had the magical keys to the darkest place in all the British Isles…and were willing to use them to unleash Hell Itself on Voldemort's allies. "WHO'S OUT THERE?!" Scabior screamed out. "COME OUT AND FACE US, YOU COWARDS!" _

_"Why should we oblige staleblood, inbred filth like you, Nicholas?" _

_He tensed. "Loony Lovegood…!" _

_"Excuse me, but that's a friend of mine you just insulted, Scabior!" another woman's voice challenged from somewhere else, making the Snatchers spin around. _

_"WEASLEY!_ **STUPEFY!**_" Clegg screamed out. _

_Several of her friends did the same thing…but again, it was to no effect. "What idiots!" a third woman's voice sneered from elsewhere. "Don't you know your magical history and what Tsukiko-sensei used to put down so many during the War of Liberation while you inbred stalebloods competed with Grindelwald for control of Europe?!" _

_"GRANGER!" Scabior snarled. "SHOW YOURSELF, MUDBLOOD! HOW DARE YOU…?!" _

_A gunshot echoed from somewhere as a geyser of blood and torn flesh exploded from Scabior's abdomen. He gurgled in shock as a storm of pain flooded his mind before he dropped to his knees, a look of disbelief appearing on his face before he collapsed to his side. The other Snatchers gaped in horror on seeing their leader SHOT like that — a wizard or witch using_ **muggle** _weapons against other wizards or witches was seen as the lowest creature on the planet…which clearly showed that Undesirable Number Two (as Hermione Granger had been termed by the Thicknesse ministry) had to be caught and eliminated as soon as possible — before tendrils of the fog surrounding them snared their wand hands to yank away their primary means of defending themselves. Several moved to activate their portkeys to teleport away from Chalcot Wood to safety…only to find that they now didn't work. As the beams of cursing energy that had burned through the Death Eaters slowly faded, people began to emerge from the fog, all mounted on jet black horses with burning manes and hoofs sparking on the ground. _

_As they took in the people now gazing without pity on them, the Snatchers were quick to recognize five of them: Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, his sister Ginny, Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom; they were people who had been involved in defeating the Death Eaters at the Department of Ministries the previous spring. Accompanying the members of the "Ministry Six" were five unknown women their age, dressed in the white-and-red robes of Japanese Shintō shrine maidens despite their clearly being European. As they emerged into the light, the Snatchers then gaped on recognizing two of those women. _

_Raven Malfoy and Cassiopeia Lestrange. _

_Two women who should be DEAD… _

_…but, thanks to the Curse of Helga Hufflepuff and the help of someone — neither Raven nor Cassiopeia had revealed who to the_ Quibbler _when they and their friend Rose Potter were interviewed by Luna after the Battle of the Department of Mysteries as to how they had been given new life in the first place; when pressed by Luna, Cassiopeia attributed such an act to an "angel of the stars" — who had discovered their living spirits and the spirits of many others across the British Isles in the mid-1980s, now lived…and had gone to Meridiana in the hills of northern Wales to learn their magic. _

_And — after their graduation and promotion to the rank of Discipula Magi — had been apprenticed to the most feared Dark Lady in recent history. _

_Remembering that factoid about Draco Malfoy's sister and Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter, Clegg blinked as her eyes focused on the dark-haired witch riding beside the newly-ennobled Marquess of Holdenhurst. Noting the physical similarities between this woman and Neville, the Snatchers quickly realized this was his once-lost sister Grace Longbottom, who had been stillborn in St. Mungo's thanks to the Lestranges and the younger Barty Crouch…but was clearly alive and well. _

_And was obviously ready to help her blood-traitor brother ensure the mudbloods would conquer wizarding Britain and wipe out a thousand years of culture once and for all. _

_"Don't expect any help from your friends in the Forest of Dean, by the way." _

_Eyes locked on Hermione. "What the hell does THAT mean, mud-…?!" one of the other Snatchers snarled…before his voice caught in his throat on seeing her level a silver gun at him. "Y-y-y-you can't u-u-use th-that…!" _

_"Shut up, you pathetic waste of staleblood flesh!" the normal-born from West Sussex snarled as she cocked the hammer of the specially-modified Webley Mark VI .455 revolver; the weapon had been provided to her by goblin gunsmiths to help protect her against the hordes of Fenrir Greyback. "If it hasn't sunk into that empty cesspool between your ears by now, staleblood, you have NO Ministry and NO Wizengamot to support you, much less the half-blood_ **bastard child** _you ultimately serve!" As the Snatchers all snarled on hearing Hermione call Voldemort "half-blood" and "bastard child," she gave them a mirthless smile. "That was wiped out two weeks ago thanks to the Queen! As for your friends in the Forest of Dean, our former classmate Sally-Anne Perks and the Meretrice sisters — who, by the way, are all Meridiana alumni thanks ultimately to Riddle and his friends years ago! — wiped out that camp and freed your hostages. All your friends are now in Gonebren entertaining the Hollows!" As her foes quailed on hearing That Name, she then smiled. "Oh, watch this!" she then teased before she, Ginny and Luna exchanged looks. _

_"_**VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT!**_" _

_Hope bloomed amongst the Snatchers on hearing them chant the Dark Lord's battle name…which then turned to knee-weakening despair on seeing nothing happen. As the Death Eaters who had come with them continued to moan in agony from the multiple doses of the Cruciatus that had been applied on their Marks by Raven and her friends, the female member of the Golden Trio shrugged as she pulled her revolver back to hold it close to her shoulder. "The Taboo is gone," Hermione said. "The Trace is no more. Even the kids who just finished their first year at Hogwarts can defend their homes and families from your friends. All they have to do is call out Gonebren's name…and the Hollows take the trash away!" As the Snatchers gargled on hearing that, she smiled. "I figure that by the end of next month, Riddle's forces will all be BRAIN DEAD!" _

_"It won't be much of a loss, 'Mione," Ron added. "Given how inbred these losers are…!" _

_"Damn straight about that!" Ginny sneered. _

_"How could you, Weasley?!" Clegg then challenged before she glared at Neville. "And what about you, Longbottom?! You're PUREBLOODS! You're much better than mudblood filth like Granger, to say anything of Potter's bitch mother…!" _

_"Oh, you shouldn't have said that," Neville teased. _

_"Agreed," Luna breathed out as she looked off to her right towards the east. "Tsukiko-sensei doesn't like it when people insult her students…" _

_Horses hooves echoed through the fog as the Snatchers all spun around… _

_…just as a form dressed in solid white samurai armour complete with protective helmet and a crimson horned oni mask over the face swept in at full gallop on the back of a well-muscled nightmare, drawing back a glowing silver katana… _

_…while Augustus Rookwood — who, thanks to his having endured the after-effects of his lord's mercurial mood swings for years, could recover faster from prolonged or multiple exposure to the Cruciatus than any of his current companions — staggered to his feet. _

_He didn't see his death coming at him until his head was cleaved right off the neck! _

_As the Snatchers watched in mute horror on seeing one of Voldemort's senior fighters literally become a head shorter, Luna turned and let out a shrill whistle with her lips and fingers. The air around them then chilled to near-freezing as the fog seemed to transform into barely humanoid figures dressed in clothing that spanned the ages…and whose eyes glowed with righteous fire. "All the unmarked traitors, my friends…_**GONEBREN, 'A' BLOCK!**_" the daughter of the owner of the_ Quibbler _bellowed as she held out the sword-sized glowing skeleton key that would unlock the gates of That Place. _

**«Consider it done, Milady!»** _a cackling male voice then responded from somewhere. _

_The Snatchers — even the badly-wounded Nicholas Scabior — croaked out in mortal terror before they were literally encompassed by the Hollows and made to vanish, teleported to the dark moors of Cornwall and the hellish prison deep within. As the air temperature slowly returned to normal, the rider who had just beheaded Rookwood calmly came up to gaze without pity at the other Death Eaters. As Charles tried to grab his wand, a gloved hand reached out to wandlessly yank it — and the other dropped wands — into the grasp of Rookwood's executioner. With a slice of the katana, the wands were cut in half before the pieces were tossed contemptuously aside. While the other Death Eaters blearily looked up at the ghastly image looming over them, the rider calmly sheathed the katana before reaching up to pull the mask away from his face, revealing… _

_"P-p-Potter…?!" Charles sputtered out in disbelief. _

_"Good morning, Lord Potter. A pleasant morning, isn't it?" _

_Harry looked towards the ward stone that Rookwood had been trying to destroy, nodding his head. "Lady Matthews, good morning," he said as Diana Matthews came up out of the fog, escorted by another nightmare rider in the robes of a Shintō miko…and who looked very much like a reborn Lily Potter save for reading glasses over her eyes. "I'm glad that Rose was able to find you and bring you here to see this. Seems you have a bit of a pest problem." He waved nonchalantly to the Death Eaters on the ground nearby. _

_"So I noticed," the silver-haired woman with the dark eyes hummed as she gazed in contempt at the half-dozen people who had come here to break into the protected zone her husband's family had established years before in and around Birmingham. Her eyes briefly stopped on her eldest son, whom she had given birth to right out of Hogwarts, before they gazed on the others. "Emil Hostina, Courtney Fearon, Penelope McGhie, Caroline Dorvas, Peter Reed…and Charles Nomen Nescio," she declared with a cold voice. As Charles croaked on hearing the Latin term for "I do not know the name" applied to him — which indicated he had been legally disowned and disinherited from his family; such people were often called with the mocking term "No Name" by people who knew of such a ghastly fate…which made him lower than a mudblood in the eyes of pureblood traditionalists as a family name meant EVERYTHING in British wizarding society — and the other Death Eaters paled, Diana turned to leave. "Kindly remove this trash, Lord Potter. We don't want the normals to have to deal with them." _

_Harry nodded. "As you wish." _

_"Mother…!" _

_Diana stopped before she coldly gazed on the young man who was her son now only in genetics. "For your treason against the Crown and Magic Itself, you are dead to us all, Charles. If my eldest daughter defies her father's wishes, she will join you amongst the Nameless." As Charles paled on hearing what his parents were prepared to do to his beloved sister, she shook her head. "Lord Potter, kill him first," she then asked as she indicate her former son. "Behead him and deliver the head with my husband's sincerest complements to Miss Turpin in repayment for the loss of her parents." _

_"M-mother…!" _

_"No problem at all," Harry declared as magic billowed in his right hand. _

_"_**ANIMAE GLADIUM!**_" _

_A second later, multiple shrieks of agony echoed through Chalcot Wood… _

_…though Rose Potter was quick to see Diana Matthews turn away from the scene of her son having his soul being burned out of his body, the older woman's eyes glistening with tears…_

* * *

"So what do we do?" Orion wondered before sipping his wine. "I don't want to lose any more of my children to that bastard Riddle…even now, thirteen years later!"

Pierus sighed. "I don't blame you, my friend…"

* * *

The City of Westminster, the residence of the Ambassador of the Republic of New Avalon to the Court of St James's on the second floor at 221B Baker Street near Regent's Park, that moment…

"Didn't this bother you, Alice?"

Alice Holmes perked on hearing that amused question from the Man-Who-Won before she giggled. "Actually, no," the dark-haired tomboy with the sorrowful brown eyes — she reminded Harry Potter of a picture he had seen of the famous singer Lillie Langtry, the once-lover of the future King Edward VII who was believed by some to be the inspiration of the character of Irene Adler from _A Scandal in Bohemia_ — mused as she proceeded to prepare tea for her guests. "Father was a big fan of Sir Arthur's works; that's the reason he took the family name 'Holmes' when he first was assigned here on Earth in 1972. When the Society learned that after I made my first public appearance after the Liberation, they wouldn't HEAR of me living anywhere else but here."

"At least the museum on the first floor's not been altered," Percy Weasley noted as he gazed out onto the busy street that served as part of the A41 trunk road that connected downtown London with Birkenhead. On seeing his host gaze in surprise at him, the Senior Undersecretary smiled. "My father's fascination with normals infected all of my siblings and I to one extent or another," he explained. "Like your father, I came to like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works. I was actually surprised to learn than when those stories were set, this part of Baker Street wasn't actually named that."

"What was it named?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked; he had also read some of those stories, but he wasn't a Sherlockologist by any stretch of the imagination.

"'Upper Baker Street,'" Percy answered. "Separate house numbers from the main street, which only extended up to Crawford Street four blocks down from here. The part between Crawford and Marylebone Road was called 'York Place' for the longest time before they decided to name the whole stretch as 'Baker Street.'" He nodded his thanks as Alice handed him a cup of English breakfast tea. "Actually, this part of the building should be properly numbered as 239 Baker Street. But they decided to tweak the numbers when they set up that museum downstairs, not to mention the bookstore on the ground floor."

The others laughed as they were served. After that was done, Alice took her chair. "I received a report from the watchmistress aboard the _Freedom_; that's one of the Kashin-class ships that was seized in the Liberation," she reported. "Roughly around the time of that incident at Nurmengard this morning, a total of 4,400 gestation tubes with fully templated bioroids appeared on the ship's main hangar deck. The gestation units themselves had been removed from the factory between 1930 and 1935 for deployment to places in Europe, northern Africa, the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Forty-four separate observers with a hundred bioroids each…though none of them were templated and woken by the time World War Two started and all contact with them was lost." She shrugged. "It was seen as an accepted hazard of the time. The Great War saw dozens of observers — though fortunately, without bioroid assistants as this was in the early days of our race's enslavement — killed off because they were in the wrong places at the wrong time."

"Thank Merlin for that," Kingsley noted. "Has President Otako said anything to you or your counterparts about what will happen with Brigadier Gibbon and her people?"

"Right now, we're more concerned about helping them adjust to being in the year 2010 when they last were awake and active in 1945, Kingsley," Alice stated. "They've missed out on sixty-five years of life being frozen in those gestation units in that cave. Even if they fought as allies — effectively unwilling ones at that because of the magical loyalty oath that they were forced to make to Adolf Hitler as part of Thoughtmaster-prime Grindelwald's alliance with that man — of the Nazis, they deserve to enjoy something of a normal life under their control."

"If it was only that simple," the Minister for Magic breathed out. "Much that I personally — and I'm speaking for Percy and Harry here — would agree to that fact, Madame Holmes, there are people still alive in this country who did suffer from what the Schwarze Mädchen did during that war, such as relatives of those killed when Margareta Hecht led her team to the Ministry to destroy the loyalty stones used then to keep the colonial magicals under the ultimate control of the Crown through Minister Fenwick."

"Not to mention those families who lost fortunes when their businesses in the colonies were wiped out after Grindelwald's War and the War of Liberation," Percy added. "My own family was one of them, in fact." He then smiled. "Personally, after meeting up with some of my grandfather's old playmates from India and learning of what they felt like after Sergeant-Major Hecht and her friends did what they did, I wouldn't care about that."

"Nor would I," Harry added. "My own family had interests in Asia and Africa as well. My great-grandfather owned farms in Tanzania and Kenya; he lost everything when local ministries of magic were formed after 1946 and declared themselves independent from the Ministry here in London. From what I've learned over the years, he didn't mind it that much even if his income dropped considerably because of what happened. He didn't care too much for the Ministry's approach to the colonies in Africa and Asia."

"So there might be private moves to seek redress?" Alice asked.

"Effectively yes," Kingsley noted. "Officially, the actions of the Schwarze Mädchen were exonerated in 1950 when the ICMC passed a binding resolution concerning them." He then chuckled. "All the nations of Europe — save the Soviet Union, their client states, Iceland, West Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Italy, Spain and Portugal — voted against that, but the rest of the world passed it and made it binding on all members and the societies they represented. Atop that, there is the Statute of Limitations Act passed in 1999. That was forced on us originally by the leaders of the families who supported Voldemort as a way of helping people avoid Azkaban, but we were able to work it around to make it run parallel to the normal system. Thus, since it has been sixty-five years since the Schwarze Mädchen were active fighters, there's no way those who would seek redress for lost revenues and income to get their day in front of the Wizengamot."

"As for whatever deaths were caused by the Schwarze Mädchen, that falls under the very hazy rules of warfare," Harry added. "Yes, Master Gellert was a Dark Lord by every definition of the term. But he was ALSO the Reich Minister of Magical Affairs acting under the ultimate authority of the Führer — who was Germany's head of state and head of government at the time — when he launched his war against European magical societies in 1939 parallel to the European side of World War Two. And since we didn't and still don't require wizards and witches to make some binding oath of loyalty to the Crown as that violates clauses in the Separation Act, we can't really view Brigadier Gibbon and her friends as 'traitors.'" He shrugged. "After all, they came from Depression-era normal Britain — where their parents were mostly on the dole — to spend seven years at Hogwarts, then were literally thrown to the dogs because of the hiring practices of the time period. It's no wonder that when Master Gellert began espousing his Greater Good theories, people like the Gibbon sisters flocked to it. They felt they had no life to live here and wouldn't want to go back to a normal life without being able to use magic openly."

"That remained true in a lot of ways even after that war," Percy added.

Harry nodded. "What about other nations?" Alice asked.

"Save for Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, all the other nations whose citizens fought as part of the Schwarze Mädchen find themselves in similar situations legally," Kingsley noted. "Supreme Mugwump Ramirez has been on the floo all day reminding my counterparts in Paris, Brussels, the Hague and elsewhere about the 1950 resolution that wiped the slate clean concerning those girls. There's been the odd grumble or two, but the laws on the Continent were restructured effectively by the Americans after the war to follow their views on personal liberty; what we FINALLY were able to catch up with in many places here after Voldemort was dealt with." He sighed. "But…"

"There are chances that people might want to seek them out personally," Alice finished.

He nodded. "Yes."

"What about Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain?"

"Since it was discovered that the Schwarze Mädchen — after they were finally freed of their loyalty oath to Hitler — helped track down senior Nazis like Martin Bormann and Heinrich Himmler to ensure they died or were caught by normal soldiers serving the Allies, the Magische Bundesrat in Bonn and the Magische Volkskongress in East Berlin passed laws endorsing the ICMC resolution in 1950 that wiped the slate clean concerning those of Brigadier Gibbon's subordinates from Germany," Harry answered. "The Magische Bundesrat in Vienna, the Magico Senato in Rome and the Corte Mágico in Madrid eventually did the same thing at the same time for those girls who came from Austria, Italy and Spain. They also agreed to allow the West Germans — and the unified Germans after 1990 — to hold onto what artifacts remained from the Schwarze Mädchen for posterity's sake. Including their wands." He then held up a finger in emphasis. "I will note that the medals those girls won during the war were all altered in 1957 to conform with the laws passed at the time that forbade the wearing of a swastika on any medal awarded during World War Two. Any pure Nazi Party decorations are considered illegal and can't be worn. Proper military medals and decorations such as the various classes of the Iron Cross and wound badges can still be worn, though they were normally replaced with insignia bearing oak leaf clusters on the crosses."

The others chuckled. "So what about this matter with the daywalker vampires I was told about?" Alice asked. "Why were they there in the first place? What purpose would they have in attacking a whole group of helpless witches in cryogenetic suspension?"

"Unfortunately, thanks to _**her**_, we can't ask any of them," Harry noted, which made Alice roll her eyes. "I know! Given how many titles got slammed on me over the years, just limiting the title to 'her' for that girl is rather overdoing it!" As more laughter filled the room, he added, "I do know that President Lincoln is in Britain at this time; he's staying at the Leaky Cauldron now. I don't know what brought him here, but given that he never leaves North Dakota without reason, it's easy to conclude. Some of his old sparring partners from the time of the Civil War that escaped the Score and Four are in country as well."

"What purpose would they have in gathering here?" she wondered. "We've encountered many vampires since the Liberation. We've no problems with them."

"But they might have problems with you."

Eyes locked on Kingsley. "What do you mean, Kingsley?" Percy asked.

"When Harry spoke about the Score and Four, I remembered that some of the vampires who escaped North America to get away from Mister Lincoln always called him a 'crystal-blood,'" the minister mused. "Albus told me this once when I found a book on vampires in the library at Hogwarts in my fifth year and read about the Rail-Splitter — even if his real identity wasn't publicly known outside America at the time — and what he did between 1865 and 1889. Being called a 'crystal-blood' implied there was mesonium in the blood stream."

"Like the ebony meson _Freiherr_ von Taserich and Master Hosan — not to mention all the people the former loved to experiment on…INCLUDING President Lincoln until General Raeburn got to him! — had in their blood," Percy stated before his eyes widened and he gaped in shock at his host. "Not to mention…"

"Every Avalonian — Terran-form, Terran-turned and Terran-adopted — on the planet and in orbit," the Elder Mother of the Avalonians in Britain said with a nod before she sipped her tea. "They're afraid we're taking away their primary source of food."

"Which you wouldn't ever contemplate doing by force given what happened to your people before February," Kingsley noted before he sighed. "However, all it takes…"

"Is one lunatic to start up a terror campaign," Harry breathed out. "I…" He then perked as his cell phone rang. "Excuse me, please," he said as he pulled his iPhone it out of the pouch on his belt before holding it to his ear. "Potter."

"Hey, Harry! Where are you?"

"I'm at Alice's flat on Baker Street, 'Mione. What is it?"

"I just spoke to Mister Lincoln," Hermione replied from her office at the Ministry. "He was advised to come to Britain by Elder Tȟatȟáŋka because of a vision the elder had about a whole metric tonne of 'walking carrion' moving to kill off the Space Angels with stolen magic. Given what happened this morning at Nurmengard…"

He moaned. "Oh, great! 'Mione, what's your opinion of the Schwarze Mädchen when it comes to overall magical power? They didn't have the Neuwied Test back then…"

"Given how good and how thorough their training was — which the non-Germans like Brigadier Gibbon were quick to catch up on when they got the chance — before they were sent out into the field, I'd say that even the privates in that group could easily have given Tom some serious problems," his best female friend answered. "Atop that, they're a properly-trained military force with six years of hard battle experience against all sorts of opponents — even the War Hawks! — under their belts. If you're with Alice right now, you should advise her to pass on to President Otako to hire those girls on as the core element of the permanent Avalonian Defence Force."

He nodded on hearing that. While a separate defence force for those Avalonians who remained now on the bioroid factory hadn't been set up — given the more pressing need to have the United Nations Earth Defence Force stood up, especially in the wake of what the Urusians and the Niphentaxians instigated after the start of the month — there had been talk from time to time to allow a permanent security force to be established there. While many Avalonians still in space held dual citizenship with whatever nation on Earth welcomed them in, there were those who wanted to establish a separate Avalonian colony under Otako Meinyak's direct control. A prospective location for such a colony was a Class M planet not so far from Spotak that was in unclaimed space between that world and the territory of the Seifukusu Dominion which was being eyed for eventual takeover by the joint Earth-New Avalon alliance due to lack of colonization from Dominos and its older colonies. Such a planet would become the "New Avalon" in the Provisional Republic's official name and would be open for immigration to those Terrans who might want to get away totally from any sort of Terran rule. However, any plans to actually settle that planet were on the back burner for the time being. Still, the chances were there that some attack on the inner part of the solar system could press through to the factory itself, so having an "Avalonian defence force" answerable to Otako was seen as logical.

_So why not let it be_ magical _as well?!_ the Man-Who-Won mused before he asked, "Could they survive full-time up there, 'Mione? I know there's magic in that gestation fluid they use to create and template new bodies, but would that be enough for them?"

Hermione sighed. "I think so." She then chuckled. "I wanted to go up there to meet them. You know how I think about them, Harry." As he laughed, she breathed out, "But I want to clear it with you first. I know their legal status is questionable at this time, but they deserve to know that much of what they fought for did come to pass."

Harry nodded. It had always been the basic theme when he and his friends elected in the wake of the Battle of Hogwarts to do the right thing no matter what obstacle got in their way to make their society the best place they could for future generations. Part of that included respecting where the basic attitudes that had driven Voldemort's allies into launch the Purification Wars in the first place came from. Yes, there was simply no way that what political, economic and social gains had been won after 1997 would be allowed to be taken away by the pureblood traditionalists…but there WAS a unique British wizarding culture that had evolved separate of the normal world since 1692 and its good points deserved to be protected and honoured. Of course, opinions on what was "good" and what was "bad" in wizarding Britain varied from person to person and generation to generation…and given how stiff and inflexible the Ministry of Magic and its component organs had been for so long — compounded by the total LACK of general public input into the magical government save for when a Minister for Magic was elected every ten years — any attempts at serious change was always bound to make the traditionalists balk. Atop that, the scale of the violence that rocked the First Purification War in the late 1970s and the early 1980s — topped by the bloody one-sided nature of the Second Purification War as shown during Death Eater Season — made even neutral traditionalists wary of any newfangled thing normal-borns and normal-raised wizards and witches like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger introduced. Yes, Harry had the advantage of being the Man-Who-Won to influence public opinion to his way of viewing things…but he didn't want to have the potential power and influence that title could force on him overwhelm him as the power and adulation showered on Albus Dumbledore after 1945 clearly overcame him.

_Then again, that's part of the reason he wanted me raised away from the magical world_, he mused as he reflected yet again on his early childhood with the Dursleys. "Okay, go ahead, 'Mione," he stated. A quick glance to Kingsley got him a nod of understanding in turn. "Make sure you make it clear to Brigadier Gibbon that any decision concerning them is still pending here and elsewhere save in Berlin, Vienna, Rome and Madrid," he added. "Tell them about all the legal changes we've made over the years. I doubt they'll have any living relatives alive today — especially the British Black Maidens — but that can be checked on if necessary."

"Alright, Harry," Hermione replied. "Oh, President Lincoln told me that if you wanted to see him, he'll be at the Caldron for the rest of today."

"Fair enough."

* * *

In space aboard the _Freedom_, an hour before supper (London time)…

"My God…this turned out even better than we ever dreamt…"

"It is that, _Mon Général_. Save for Britain, of course."

"Well, they are coming along slowly."

"The fools there still need swift kicks in their collective arses, Jessica."

"True," Jessica Gibbon breathed out as she placed the dataPADD down on the table.

The senior leaders of the Black Maidens were seated around a circular coffee table located in the former captain's meeting room, enjoying drinks and soft snacks while they scanned through the incredible amount of data that their new hosts had procured for them concerning the post-1945 history of Earth's magical societies. Thanks to the wonderful ease by which information could be shared via mind-melding — as taught to them by the healers as they were helped through the Awakening over the last few hours — learning how to operate the hand-held computers and navigate the HyperNet had been child's play. Despite the understandable sense of dislocation all of them felt — it had come to the point where Elizabeth Gibbon ordered all the junior officers and ranks to go find places to sleep; fortunately for the Schwarze Mädchen, the living quarters of the _Freedom_ had yet to be stripped of their furniture — on learning that _**sixty-five years**_ had passed since their last conscious moment on the grounds of Nurmengard, the love and loyalty all of the Black Maidens felt for each other was as solid as diamond.

That had been Gellert Grindelwald's original intention when he began gathering the first recruits into his special battalion — later expanded to a brigade — of combat sorceresses in the mid-1930s. Seeing that the cronyism and arrogance of traditional magical enclaves across Europe was squeezing out skilled normal-borns as they graduated from places like Hogwarts, Beauxbâtons and Drumstrang, the then-master of the Elder Wand concluded that the best way to make his vision of the Greater Good — where the Statute of Secrecy would be done away with once and for all and magical and normal would be united once more as one society…with magicals, of course, ruling over normals — more acceptable to the masses was to recruit people who could effectively operate in both worlds. While the Magische Reichsarmee he raised was filled with wizards and witches of all origins — normal-borns, half-bloods, disenfranchised or normal-sympathetic purebloods and hybrids with various magical creatures — who wanted a chance to launch a world-wide revolution, the Schwarze Mädchen was unique both in the origins of its members and the fact that all of them were women.

Unfortunately, it was around that very time that one critical development in normal society was starting to be noted: The rise of the so-called "mystery men," the first widespread generation of non-magical metahumans. Because of that — tacked onto the loss of the Steel Angels in 1937 thanks to their sensing the coming of World War Two and their adamant unwillingness to harm organic humans — Grindelwald had no choice but to make compromises with the Nazi hierarchy to get normal support to ensure his vision stood a good chance of actually coming to fruition. The one compromise that impacted the Magische Reichsarmee the most was the imposition of the _Führerprinzip_ and a magical oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. That — which had been suggested by the leader of the Schutzstaffel, Heinrich Himmler, as Germany began preparing for war — ensured that with a quick reminder of that oath, no magical warrior obeying Grindelwald would do anything to topple the normal power structure or rebel against the Führer.

Fortunately for the Black Maidens, Hitler didn't use them in long-distance strikes against normal targets; that was the basic mission given to the Übermenschen Gruppe on its founding in 1940. As the Nazi war machine rampaged across Europe, elements of the Magische Reichsarmee advanced with them to suppress local magical resistance to the invaders. While the majority of the magical fighters serving the Dark Lord of Europe were busy keeping resistance down, Grindelwald — honouring his alliance with Yomigawa Tsukiko — directed the Black Maidens into destroying powerful artifacts in Paris, Brussels, the Hague and London that allowed the French, the Belgians, the Dutch and the British to maintain overall control over the magicals in their colonial empires. Once that was done by mid-1943, whatever power various magical ministries or ministries-in-exile could summon from the colonies — those that hadn't been liberated by Tsukuyomi's forces — was gone.

While the European side of World War Two was starting to go bad for Adolf Hitler, the magical war happening at the same time appeared to be going Gellert Grindelwald's way.

However, by the time the Allies landed at Normandy, the Übermenschen Gruppe operating in North America had been effectively wiped out by the War Hawks and the Liberty Legion. Now free to be used as an offensive force, Dean Raeburn's team came across the Atlantic and, basing themselves at Hogwarts, began launching raid after raid across occupied Europe to brutally whittle down whatever metahuman forces the Nazis still had active that could oppose the Allied advance on Germany. That eventually brought them into direct conflict with Grindelwald's forces, including the Schwarze Mädchen. And while the Black Maidens survived their encounters with the War Hawks with no fatalities, they DID endure many injuries that knocked down the brigade's total combat strength to a quarter by the start of 1945.

Ironically, the sheer brute power that Dean Raeburn, Heather Thompkins and Jessica Dover — supported by the deadly marksmanship of Martin Larsden — could bring to bear against their foes eventually began to _terrify_ the very people they were trying to _**liberate**_! It finally got to the point where Albus Dumbledore — who had pretty well stayed out of active efforts to put his old lover down while he taught at Hogwarts — pleaded with the Protector of All Life to allow him to muster an all-magical force to deal with Grindelwald in a final winner-take-all strike to end the magical war in Europe…especially with the rampaging hordes of Soviet magicals charging towards Germany from the east under the command of the infamous Siberian She-bear, Marshal Svetlána Múromeca. Raeburn — with profound reluctance and an unwillingness to split the magical and normal sides of World War Two apart in her own mind; because of that all-encompassing worldview, she only desired to have the damned war in all its aspects done and over with! — eventually agreed. By then, a desperate Grindelwald — who couldn't really depend on Josef von Taserich anymore; the losses in the Übermenschen Gruppe and the several times the _Rittmeister_ had fought Raeburn personally had taken their toll on the man — contacted the Mage of the Beginning on Nerio and brokered an alliance. It was a risky thing; many amongst the therianthrope tribes on Mars' sister planet had little cause to like Earth humans — especially magical humans! — and the Life-Maker's own designs for Nerio would eventually spell the end of all magic on Earth. But it was done.

That agreement was immediately noted on by the War Hawks' ally from Russia, Vladímir Rúsalovič Tayčéško — the immortal Praetorian Guardian known commonly as "Lord Rjazán'" — which prompted him to take a more active role in dealing with the Nazis beyond keeping the various Germanic and Greco-Latin deities and demons from multiple dimensions from openly interfering in mortal affairs. At his suggestion, Raeburn put Dumbledore through a personal combat training program that sharpened the transfiguration master's already excellent duelling skills to an unprecedented degree. Tayčéško also contacted Duncan McLeod to gather a force of Immortals to help out in the attack at Nurmengard; until then, the undying foundling swordsmen had stayed out of any magical or metahuman battles even if many were serving as soldiers in various armies across the planet. One of them had been a white Australian named David Wisden, who had endured a Dark Quickening in late 1944 and — by the time that V-E Day came around in early May of 1945 — was barely able to keep the tsunami of violent urges he had absorbed from his last kill at bay.

It would turn out to be a very wise move…

"_Mon Dieu_! Even after we poured out magic into the World-Gate, it wasn't enough to stop the Nerioites?!" the French-born commander of the brigade headquarters company and Elizabeth's brigade major, Lila Fontaine, breathed out. "Raeburn had to behead one of the Immortals and use the power of the Quickening to destroy the World-Gate!"

"Well, I've always read that whenever Tayčéško makes a suggestion, it's for a _**damned**_ good reason," Margareta Hecht noted as she crossed her arms. By now, all of the Black Maidens were dressed in basic utility uniforms from the armies of their homelands, with equivalent rank insignia on their tunics. "What do we do now?" she then asked.

Eyes locked on Elizabeth. Noting that, the Yorkshire-born brigadier tried not to blush too much on sensing all of her senior staff gaze expectantly on her. She hadn't really aspired to become the leader of the Black Maidens when she had travelled to Germany almost a year before the invasion of Poland. Like her twin sister and the thirty-six other British witches that had jumped across the North Sea to fight for Grindelwald during the 1930s, Elizabeth had become very disenfranchised by the hideously corrupt society she tried to become a part of after graduating from Hogwarts. She really had no bonds to home anymore and was willing to try something new and exciting; after all, none of the teachers from Headmaster Armando Dippet on down had shown any of their normal-born charges the hidden truths of what British magical society was really like once they were free of Hogwarts.

When Elizabeth — who had graduated with top NEWTs in 1938 — found out she couldn't hope to apprentice with a local transfiguration master to gain a mastery of her own because of her "muggle" origins, she was soon contacted by Enid Geraint. The first British witch to travel to Germany and join the Black Maidens, Enid — a Welsh woman who had been four years ahead of the Gibbon twins at Hogwarts — persuaded Elizabeth and Jessica of the righteous nature of Grindelwald's cause and the need to finally destroy the International Confederation of Wizards…especially when they got the chance to go on a trip to Japan to witness first-hand how European magicals had so badly enslaved local magicals in Asia and elsewhere thanks to Yomigawa Tsukiko.

Thanks to some excellent combat training thanks to Grindelwald and the best magical duellists in Germany, Italy and Japan available at the time, Elizabeth soon made a name for herself as a quick thinker and a skilled warrior. She had been the one who led the mission to Paris in late 1940 to ultimately destroy the loyalty stones enslaving thousands of innocent colonials. Originally assembled by Napoleon's magical advisers from a stele dating all the way from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of ancient Egypt which found at Rašīd during his campaign there in the late 1790s, those particular loyalty stones had helped the French colonial authorities wipe out several traditional enclaves in what today was Cambodia and Vietnam. During that particular battle — while the rest of her platoon of foreign volunteers were busy laying waste to the Ministry headquarters and seizing whatever objects that might interest Grindelwald's own researchers — Elizabeth personally duelled several experienced French hit-wizards to the death, escaping with only a few bruises. That — tacked onto missions in Poland against magical partisans in the winter of 1940-41, then later personally leading a platoon of Black Maidens into Serbia in the spring of 1941 to wipe out a rogue coven of demon-possessed vampires killing German soldiers and civilians alike — would see Elizabeth Gibbon become the first foreign-born magical warrior to be awarded the Iron Cross for bravery in action; she would eventually end the war with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, which had been awarded to her by the Führer personally in late 1943.

Remembering that afternoon at the Berghof with Hitler and his advisers, Elizabeth fought back tears of shame as she sat back in her chair. It had been so innocent back then. The Führer — an avowed vegetarian who loathed smoking and drinking and enjoyed simple things…even if there were rumours of sexual deviancy; she had heard of what had happened to his niece Geli Raubal in 1931 — had been a kind host to those Schwarze Mädchen who had been invited to the slopes of the Obersalzberg that day to receive what German soldiers often derisively nicknamed the "tin necktie."

Remembering that, Elizabeth gazed on her brigade sergeant-major. Margareta Hecht — then ranked _Oberscharführerin der Schwarze Mädchen und Oberwachthexe der Magische Reichsarmee_; she would be made _Sturmscharführerin und Stabswachthexe_ at the start of 1944, the same day Elizabeth succeeded Livia Dietrich as the _Reichsführerin_ — would be promoted within the order of the Iron Cross to receive the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds for her leading the attack on London to destroy the British colonial loyalty stones at the Ministry of Magic while Elizabeth was busy in Serbia.

That same operation, Elizabeth mused, also earned Margareta the thanks of the Heavenly Sovereign of Japan as well as the Military Medal of Honour and the fourth class Order of the Sacred Treasure; that had been at the recommendation of Yomigawa Tsukiko. That attack on London, the Black Maidens later learned, ultimately snapped the bonds forced on Gurkha hit-wizards by the Ministry of Magic who were making life hell on the Greater East Asia Liberation Brigade. This had allowing those poor fellows to return home to the mountains of modern-day Nepal…and permitted Tsukuyomi's best warriors to sweep unchecked across the Subcontinent all the way to Iran!

Yet, after Hitler had taken his own life at the end of April in 1945…!

"Don't feel so bad about it, Liz."

Elizabeth gazed over at Jessica. While the former always adopted a very serious look when it came to styling her hair — she had been a Ravenclaw at Hogwarts — the latter always allowed her blonde locks to flow free. Recalling how Eva Braun had admired such beautiful hair — Jessica herself had been a Gryffindor — when they had been at the Berghof, the leader of the Black Maidens could only moan. "Why, Jess…?"

"We felt ourselves facing the choice of living in one of two different types of Hell," Lila answered on her best friend's behalf. "At the time we put on the black suits, we believed our societies were the worst of the two. We learned differently."

The others ruefully nodded. When the loyalty bond to the Führer had died with him under the garden of the Reichskanzlei in Berlin, the Black Maidens were — like many other Germans — confronted face-first with the horrid revelations about what happened in places like Dachau and Auschwitz. Sickened and ashamed that they — who had fought for the eradication of racism in magical societies — had been associated with the mass murder of _**millions**_ of innocent people in normal society, the Black Maidens burned their Party uniforms on the grounds of Nurmengard. In abandoning the swastika of the Nazis, they gladly took up the timeless symbol — the circle-in-a-vertically divided triangle sign marking the combination of the Cloak of True Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand under the control of a supposed "Master of Death" reminded the only American Black Maiden, Third Battalion's _Hauptscharführerin und Hauptwachthexe_ Regina Mitchell, of the logo of the Civil Defence services which came into use in 1939 — of the Deathly Hallows Grindelwald had sought for his whole life. At that time, they simply had no choice but to remain at their master's side even if they were free to disappear into the ruins of normal Europe. Even if the Dark Lord of Europe knew a lot about what his allies had unleashed across Europe, he was still determined to fight to the bitter end…especially since he had learned through sympathetic friends in Britain that his old lover was coming for him. Still, in the period between V-E Day and the Battle of Nurmengard, there had been time for the Black Maidens to atone for their being forced to fight — even by proxy! — for the genocidal monsters that had launched the European side of World War Two in the first place: Margareta hunted down Hitler's personal secretary Martin Bormann and tortured him to death in the ruins of Berlin two days after the Führer killed himself…while Elizabeth and Jessica teamed together to track down Heinrich Himmler and expose him to the British three weeks later.

And then…

"Excuse me."

Elizabeth and her friends turned to gaze on the shy-looking woman standing at the doorway to the meeting room. "What is it?" the commander of the Black Maidens asked.

A deep bow responded. "Please forgive me for disturbing you, Thoughtmistress-prime, but there's a small delegation from Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic here to see you."

Everyone blinked before Margareta sighed. "They're not here to cause trouble, are they?" the native of Gardelegen in modern-day Saxony-Anhalt wondered.

The younger woman rapidly shook her head. "No, ma'am. The leader of the delegation is a normal-born woman named Hermione Granger. She's the Special Adviser on Normal Affairs to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Also with them is a Miss Luna Lovegood, the daughter of the publisher of the _Quibbler_."

Nods from the leaders of the Black Maidens. As they spent the morning and afternoon catching up on the many years they had been forced to miss out on, Elizabeth and her friends had taken note of the various events in Britain and the people involved in them. Thanks to the island nation mostly escaping the ravages of the Magische Reichsarmee, its traditional culture had survived intact even if Albus Dumbledore — using the influence he gained thanks to his leading the successful attack on Nurmengard and personally winning a hard-fought duel against his former lover — had worked to make sure that many of the harsher attitudes that forced two of his prize transfiguration students to fight for Gellert Grindelwald wouldn't have sway over future generations. Dumbledore had made a good attempt at it, especially after his promotion to headmaster of Hogwarts in 1956…but the purebloods who controlled the Wizengamot — and through that organ of government, most other elements of wizarding Britain — fought him openly and covertly as they prayed for someone to come along to lead the traditionalists in restoring things in their society to what was truly "right" and "proper" in their eyes.

Such a leader finally came in the person of Thomas Marvolo Riddle.

When Lila Fontaine had read the self-created battle name of the last known living descendant of Salazar Slytherin, she had nearly laughed herself into a heart attack. However, what Voldemort and his allies had done in the 1970s and later in the mid-1990s had been _**no**_ laughing matter. Despite the vicious nature of the war the Schwarze Mädchen had fought between 1939 and 1945, they had done their best to NOT target defenceless children — to say anything of the UNBORN! — when they had run rampant from the Pyrenees to the steppes of Siberia and from the gates of Alexandria in Egypt to the northern mountains of Norway where the Durmstrang Institute was located. The Death Eaters — hearing that term had also caused the Black Maidens to laugh derisively at such a pathetic monicker — hadn't cared a damned bit about who died and why; if their Dark Lord wanted someone to die, that person was killed with no questions asked. What was worse, given that there were many sympathizers to Voldemort's cause across Britain, attempts by the Ministry of Magic to put down the First Purification War never really got anywhere…until a brilliant normal-born witch named Lily Potter sacrificed herself to destroy Voldemort's body in 1981 to save her son Harry.

Of course, given the fact that a baby of _**fifteen months**_ had survived the KILLING CURSE of all things quickly painted a huge target on the head of the "Boy-Who-Lived," thus necessitating his being hidden away in the normal world until it was time for him to go to Hogwarts in 1991. When he did go to that grand old castle in Scotland, Harry hadn't been the least bit prepared for what fate and prophecy would ultimately force on him. Dumbledore was of no help in the long term; the horrors of Grindelwald's War and his steadfast belief in the better angels of human nature — even in the face of what Voldemort's supporters had gladly done years before — would have eventually set Harry up to become a living sacrifice without making said sacrifice ultimately MEAN something. It actually took the direct intervention of the International Conference of Magical Communities via a Meridiana graduate named Nekane Springfield — not to mention Yomigawa Tsukiko herself! — in the summer of 1996 to see Harry trained properly to deal with Voldemort. And once the Boy-Who-Lived was seen as ready to take to the field, he wrecked the Death Eaters in a two-month search-and-destroy campaign that Voldemort's people could not stop until the latest Dark Lord to plague any part of Europe was killed in the Battle of Hogwarts mere days before the start of the 1997-98 school year.

Harry hadn't done it alone, however. Starting from his first year, he had a small circle of friends and allies at his side. Prominent amongst that group were two women named Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood. The former was a normal-born from West Sussex whose intelligence outmatched even Lily Potter's and whose sense of justice was something Elizabeth Gibbon herself could admire. The latter was the only daughter of a minor pureblood family from Devon who was reported to have Seer abilities and who had pursued careers in magical cryptozoology and reporting for a monthly magical news magazine her father Xenophilius published. And while Hermione and Luna weren't the only allies Harry possessed even to today, that both of them were here right NOW…!

"Send them in," Elizabeth bade.

The younger woman nodded before she headed out. A moment later, a group of seven women appearing to be in their early twenties walked into the room, dressed in casual business wear. Leading them was a stunningly attractive woman with wavy dark brown hair and brown eyes full of both knowledge and curiosity. Remembering what she had read of Hermione's biography on the HyperNet, Elizabeth hummed as she and her friends got to their feet. _Amazing she was a Gryffindor_, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen mused to herself. _With the intelligence she has, she should've been a Ravenclaw._

Hermione's hand immediately came out. "Generalmajorin Gibbon, I presume?"

Elizabeth tried not to snort. "Yes," she responded on grasping the offered hand, her blue-grey eyes twinkled in amusement. "I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you."

The other woman gaped in stunned shock at her before she roared with laughter, making all her companions gaze in confusion at their friend while Elizabeth's friends all rolled their eyes at that odd replay of an historic encounter between two explorers on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Notes on the various lordships spoken of here:

**The Marquessate of Halton** (Pierus Collins) — As indicated above, this is named after the borough in Cheshire located at the place where the River Weaver flows into the River Mersey about twelve kilometres east-southeast of Liverpool.

**The Marquessate of Widnes** (Herodotus Runcorn) — As indicated above, this is named after the village of the same name on the north bank of the River Mersey across from Halton itself.

**The Viscountcy of Sutton** (Orion Matthews) — As indicated above, this takes its name from part of the element of the small town where the Matthews Clan currently lives, **Sutton Coldfield**; this town is located seven kilometres north-northeast of downtown Birmingham. **The Barony of Coldfield** (Diana Matthews) is also named in part after Sutton Coldfield.

2) The **Invisibility Task Force** (**ITF**) was an element of the **Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes** (**DMAC**) with the specific task of ensuring all magical creatures resident in the United Kingdom remain invisible to normal discovery. As noted in the first part of the second _Wizards and Avalonians_ story, the whole of the DMAC was made subordinate to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the post-1997 reforms at the Ministry of Magic.

3) The reforms done to the House of Lords in the **House of Lords Act, 1999** saw the total number of members in the upper chamber of Parliament cut down from a staggering **_1,330_** lords to a more manageable _669_ lords. Of the surviving members of the House of Lords, only ninety-two are **hereditary peers** who could pass on their seats to their children; all others were **life peers**, who cannot pass on their titles to their children.

As an aside, the **Supreme Court of the United Kingdom** was established by law in the **Constitutional Reform Act, 2005** to become the supreme court in all matters under English, Welsh and Northern Irish law as well as Scottish civil law; when it comes to criminal cases in Scotland, the **High Court of Justiciary** in Edinburgh still serves as the supreme court. The Supreme Court also is the highest court of the land when it comes to devolution matters between Parliament in Westminster and the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff and the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast.

4) Translations: **Vinur Drekar** — Friend of Dragons; **Navjote** — Literally "new invoker," this is the ritual through which an individual is inducted into the Zoroastrian faith; **Sherlockologist** — An expert in **Sherlockology**…which, in essence, makes such a hardcore fan of Sherlock Holmes; **Magische Bundesrat** — Literally "Magical Federal Council," this is the name of the post-1949 version of the Wizengamot in West Germany (and after 1990, all of Germany) and the post-1955 version of the Wizengamot in Austria; **Magische Volkskongress** — Literally "Magical People's Congress," this is the name of the 1949-90 version of the Wizengamot in East Germany (which would be folded into the Magische Bundesrat after the reunification of the country); **Magico Senato** — Literally "Magical Senate," this is the version of the Wizengamot in Italy; **Corte Mágico** — Literally "Magical Court," this is the version of the Wizengamot in Spain; **Mon Général** — My General; **Führerprinzip** — The "leader principle" that prescribed the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich, which can be most succinctly understood to mean that "_The Führer's word is above all written law_"…which made Adolf Hitler the supreme legal authority in the land, unable to be challenged by any proper process of judicial review; **Reichskanzlei** — Literally "Imperial Chancellory," this was the headquarters building of Germany's head of government in Berlin from 1871-1945.

5) The incident Hermione notes of concerning _Haida_'s plank owners was covered in _A Nice Quiet Place_.

6) The reason I made Abraham Lincoln a meson-powered quasi-immortal in this story is that in the _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_ novel, Henry Sturges went to his grave site in the Illinoisan capital of Springfield on the day of his funeral and turned him into a vampire. Lincoln's funeral — as also indicated in the novel — was held on 4 May 1865, which was almost a **_month_** after the president had died thanks to a wound in the back of the head courtesy of **John Wilkes Booth** (1838-65); in the novel, Booth himself had been turned into a vampire sometime before he launched his plot to avenge the downfall of the Confederacy by assassinating the Great Emancipator and his senior cabinet staff. Since it doesn't sound right to me that a _corpse_ that had been dead for almost a month could be reanimated as a **_vampire_**, making Lincoln one of Josef von Taserich's "experiments" seemed more logical; the mesonium injected into Lincoln's bloodstream — this would have been done just prior to that fateful night at Ford's Theatre — would keep his soul anchored to his body and eventually repair the damage to his skull and brain tissue.

7) As noted in the second part of the first _W&A_ story, the **Greasy Grass Settlement** — and its spiritual leader, **Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake** — are based on situations that appeared in the fanfic story _The Mandatory Marriage Contract Fic_ by **Itsme66**. Again, many thanks to that writer for the use of his interpretation of Elder Tȟatȟáŋka in my stories.

8) The **Snatchers** who appear in the flashback scene here all appeared in _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_. Only their leader, **Scabior**, was named in the novel; the given name used here is my invention. The names of the other Snatchers caught by Harry and his friends — as well as several of the Death Eaters who had gone to Chalcot Wood to deal with the ward-stone blocking off Birmingham to Voldemort's people — were taken from the actors and actresses who appeared in the movie version of _Deathly Hallows_; other names are my invention.

9) Hermione's position as "**Undesirable Number Two**" when it comes to the ministry of **Pius Thicknesse** is my invention. In _Deathly Hallows_, only Harry earned the appellation "Undesirable Number One"…though others who opposed Voldemort were also referred to as "undesirables" by the Ministry of Magic.

10) As noted before, the Meretrice quintuplets — **Libera Meretrice** and her sisters **Juno**, **Vesta**, **Bellona** and **Fauna** — all first appeared in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_. Atop Libera being a VERY close friend to **Sally-Anne Perks**, the quints were all blood-cousins of **Blaise Zabini**. Their home village of **Rhosan Green** — located in the north end of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire — had been blocked off thanks to house elf magic in the mid-1800s; this resulted in all the villagers at the time losing their magic…though in the universe of this story, the descendants of such people were able to interact somewhat with outsiders; this is how Voldemort would find them in the late 1970s.

11) **Vladímir Rúsalovič Tayčéško** (**Lord Rjazán'**) first appeared in my fanfic _Wanderers_. **Jessica Dover** and **Martin Larsden** were both introduced in _Phoenix From the Ashes_; the former first appeared in Part 60 while the latter first appeared in Part 54.

12) **Rašīd** is the proper Arabic name for the Egyptian city in the Nile River Delta sixty-five kilometres east of Alexandra known more commonly in the English-speaking world as **Rosetta**. As is well known, this is where the famous **Rosetta Stone** was found in 1799 by the French soldier **Pierre-François Bouchard** (1772-1832). However, the Rosetta Stone dates from the **Ptolemaic Dynasty** that ruled Egypt from 305-30 B.C.E.; the **Twenty-sixth Dynasty** noted above ruled over the desert kingdom from 685-525 B.C.E.

13) The **Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross** (in German, _Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes_) were elevated levels of Germany's highest award for military valour in wartime, the **Order of the Iron Cross** (_Orden des Eisernen Kreuzes_). The various versions of the Knight's Cross which were instituted by the Nazi Party leadership in 1939 to mark exceptional acts of bravery that would be seen as going above and beyond what even the normal Iron Cross would represent. Unlike other awards for valour, the rules surrounding the awarding of the Iron Cross was structured to recognize that a winner could engage in _further_ acts of bravery that would win any other soldier an Iron Cross; this is akin to what happens to Victoria Cross winners in the British Commonwealth when they're given an additional bar worn on their medal ribbon to indicate a subsequent award. Thus, the original Iron Cross as established in 1813 for the Napoleonic Wars and later revived in 1870 (for the Franco-Prussian War) and 1914 (World War One) was awarded in one of two standard degrees, the **Iron Cross Second Class** (_Eisernes Kreuz zweite Klasse_, short-form **E.K. II**) for the basic bravery award and the **Iron Cross First Class** (_Eisernes Kreuz erste Klasse_, **E.K. I**) for exceptional acts of bravery or additional acts of bravery for those awarded the lower class of the Iron Cross…as see the example of **Adolf Hitler** (1889-1945) himself; he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class in 1914 and was elevated to First Class in 1918.

The Knight's Cross elements of the Iron Cross introduced after the start of World War Two were ranked as follows from lowest to highest:

**Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross** (_Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes_, **RK d. E.K.**) — First authorized 1 September 1939;  
**Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves** (_Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub_, **RK m. EL**) — First authorized 3 June 1940;  
**Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords** (_Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern_, **RK m. EL u. Schw.**) — First authorized 28 September 1941;  
**Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds** (_Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillianten_, **RK m. EL Schw. u. Brill.**) — First authorized 28 September 1941; and  
**Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds** (_Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Goldenem Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillianten_, **RK m. G. EL Schw. u. Brill.**) — First authorized 29 December 1944.

As an aside, there have been special variations of the Iron Cross awarded over the years to high-ranking generals and admirals. However, the Order of the Iron Cross was the **_first_** top-level award of valour in wartime that was granted _without_ recognition of rank or noble title…and this occurred LONG BEFORE the **Victoria Cross** was instituted in 1856 in the United Kingdom or the **Medal of Honour** was instituted in 1861 in the United States.

14) The play-off on the famous quote "**Doctor Livingstone, I presume**" as asked by **Henry Morton Stanley** (1841-1904) on his meeting the famous **David Livingstone** (1813-73) on 10 November 1871 has appeared again and again in stories of all types since that fateful encounter on the shores of Lake Tanganyika occurred. However, **_no one_** — at least to my knowledge — has EVER used Livingstone's reply to Stanley's question, which was quoted by Elizabeth Gibbon above: "**I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you.**"


	3. The Vengeance of Blood

Near Allonby in Cumbria, a hidden mansion on the B5300 overlooking the Solway Firth twenty-five kilometres south of west from Carlisle, suppertime…

"So they actually use those windmills to generate electricity?"

"Yes, Mother," Raven Malfoy said with an amused chuckle as she stood beside her mother Narcissa while they gazed out into the firth. Twelve kilometres just to the south of west from Solway Lookout — the ancestral home of the Malfoys of Cumbria — was a large energy farm filled with sixty pearl-white Vestas V90-3MW three-blade wind turbine generators, all set on a sandbar located almost in the middle of the bay where the River Eden and the River Esk emptied into the Irish Sea. "The power that particular place can generate would provide energy for over a hundred thousand houses." As the older woman gaped on hearing that — even now, years after the downfall of Voldemort, most of the pureblood gentry in Britain still found accepting the sheer number of normal humans living in Great Britain these days very hard to understand and accept — Raven then winked. "Atop that — according to the press releases — the amount of coal that wouldn't have to be burned every year because that wind farm is operating would be enough to fill every room in the family house." Here, she nodded back towards the beautiful mansion house built in the Italian Renaissance style on the site where the magical overlords of the northwestern frontier of England had held court since the invasion of 1066.

Narcissa nodded. She had taken note of the construction of the Robin Rigg Wind Farm as soon as the first tower had been erected in the middle of Solway Firth the previous summer. Surprised to see windmills being erected in the middle of a _bay_ full of _**water**_, she had tried to get some explanation as to why. She hadn't got far in her research, though. Thanks very much to her husband's actions before the Battle of Hogwarts, Narcissa was viewed these days by many of her countrymen with loathing…which bothered her a lot, though she never showed her distress in public, falling back on the hard lessons she had learned while attending Hogwarts from 1966 to 1973 as a member of Slytherin. That attitude hadn't been helped at all by her son's actions since he officially assumed the role of Marquis of Cumbria on reaching his majority…and given Draco's disgust of everything "muggle" and his determination to force their society to revert to the way things were before 1997, any chance of learning more was often derailed by his threatening to enforce his will and the family magic he controlled as the clan patriarch on her. That didn't happen often, of course; Draco, for all his many failings, was devoted to his mother and didn't force himself on her as some pureblood lords drunk with the power of family magic had done to widowed mothers — especially widowed mothers who still looked quite attractive! — in the past.

Thinking about that, the youngest daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black could only smirk at the critical blindness her son often showed when it came to things he believed was totally under his sway. For all his intelligence, Draco hadn't learned a thing from all the times he butted heads with Harry Potter since the day they first properly met on the Hogwarts Express at the start of the 1991-92 school year. His pride — boosted to unimaginable levels thanks to his father pandering to Draco's every whim and desire — blinded him again and again to the fact that the orphaned son of James Potter and Lily Evans was far more Slytherin than he normally let on despite his being sorted into Gryffindor. And while it had been amusing to watch such schoolyard spats from a distance, it was now a gross liability and a potential dire threat to the future of her family. Being one of the families that made up the Seven and Ten in the Wizengamot placed the Malfoys at the very pinnacle of wizarding society…which, along with the many _privileges_ such a position granted to all associated with it, also enforced an equal number of _**responsibilities**_ on the shoulders of the family head.

Draco only cared for the maintenance of the privileges his position gave him.

That would surely lead to a disaster.

Especially now that there were new lords and ladies in the Wizengamot — bright people such as Hermione Granger and Lisa Turpin, for example; even if Narcissa had to act indifferent to them in public, she did admire their intelligence and forward-thinking attitudes — and the leaders of wizarding Britain were finally making moves to restore the mages of Meridiana back to where they should have been all along hadn't some mugalophobic morons in 1705 excluded them from ANY say in the running of magical Britain, which effectively turned Wales into a separate magical enclave independent of any control from the Ministry of Magic in London. Narcissa certainly had no complaints there. In the wake of finally meeting a daughter she NEVER thought she would ever know in this lifetime, Raven's mother spoke to the paintings of her son's predecessors as leaders of the clan about how they felt about people who had mastered their gifts at Britain's OTHER magical school. Many of those lords and ladies told her straight out that they never had problems with Meridiana alumni even if they were willing to trust normals more than Hogwarts alumni did, especially during the Dark Times of Magic.

Of course, once the shades of those people got the chance to meet Narcissa's daughter in the wake of a tearful reunion at the Leaky Cauldron the day before Bellatrix Lestrange was banished from Britain, they all loudly chanted their approval…especially after they learned that Raven had graduated from basic magical training _egregia cum laude_ and had gained several worldwide-recognized masteries in scrying, spell creation, potions and warding after her three-year apprenticeship with Yomigawa Tsukiko ended with her being elevated to the coveted rank of Magistra Magi in 1998.

On seeing the young Terran-turned-Avalonian mage and assistant coach to the Chudley Cannons demonstrate her battle skills — which had been honed to a thought's breadth thanks to Tsukiko — with Ron Weasley's help in the mansion's duelling hall after the **Act Concerning Amendments to The Ministry Governance Act (1705), 2010** was passed on Monday, some had even gone so far to openly lament that Raven hadn't been made Lucius' successor.

While Narcissa privately hoped that Draco would finally get over his insane paranoia concerning Raven and what she represented, she was planning for such an eventuality.

After all, clan by-laws did allow it in extreme cases.

Especially if any sort of treason against the Crown was involved.

"You have to be careful about that, Mother."

Narcissa perked before she blushed on sensing Raven's pale blue eyes lock on her. Even if she had known about the Avalonians since shortly after their coming to Earth _en masse_ in February, their empathy and touch-telepathy still jarred the older woman from time to time. She then sighed as she fought down the outrage that had exploded from her heart on learning how far Draco had gone to censor news about his sister from their mother, such as threatening the staff of the _Daily Prophet_ to keep Raven's name out of the first article revealing the truth behind people like Rose Potter, Charlotte Crabbe, Ariel Goyle and Cassiopeia Lestrange back in late February after the Liberation happened. _Then again, I'm as much to blame for my own ignorance as he is_, she lamented to herself before she sighed. _I should have realized that my own daughter had also been rescued by Madame Holmes after I learned of Cassi, Ariel and Lotti._

"I won't have my family lose what we have because Draco is blindly adamant on following his father's path," she then stated. "It's a pity you didn't use the Praeda Bellica on Lucius when you finally struck him down at Hogwarts. If you did that…"

A tired sigh escaped the younger woman. "I've lived a simple life since I emerged from gestation in Manchester, Mother," she admitted as she moved to sit on the low stone fence that formed the inner boundary line of the wards that shielded their home from normal eyes; to those in the outside world not privy to the secrets of magic, Malfoy Manor was a decrepit ruin dating from the English Civil War, left as a slowly-disintegrating monument to a bygone era. "Alice supported me as much as she could — and as much as that damned DNA loyalty lock forced on her allowed her even if her father encouraged her to do what was necessary to give us our lives back — until I went to Meridiana. Once Sensei took me under her charge, she raised me in the traditional manner of a true samurai, one who follows the Seven Virtues without hesitation or question."

"_Gi_, _yūki_, _jin_, _rei_, _makoto_, _meiyo_, _chūgi_," Narcissa read each of them off in accented Japanese before translating, "Rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honour, loyalty." Her eyebrow then arched. "What of _kō_, _chi_ and _tei_?"

"Sensei never agreed to the adamant adherence of filial piety that so many in the Orient believe to be proper," Raven breathed out. "Like Harry when he was with the Dursleys…" — she tried not to smirk on sensing the disgust her mother felt on hearing about THAT family — "…and like others who have had abusive parents, Sensei didn't have the best home life until she discovered her magic. A beautiful woman in Meiji-era Japan was simply a commodity for the lord of the family to sell off to a prospective husband to cement political or economic alliances. Sensei did not care to be treated as such and — when she got the chance — expressed her disapproval to her father quite viciously." As Narcissa laughed, her daughter added, "Wisdom depends on the ability of the warrior to learn from her mistakes. And caring for the elderly — like filial piety — depends on the person in question and what that person did. Does that person really deserve such if she or he has done others ill in the past?"

The older woman nodded. She did understand where Raven came from when she had struck her father down at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries in the late spring of 1996 and once more at the Battle of Hogwarts over a year later. Lucius — who should have sensed right away what Raven really was; when Draco's sister had been still-born in the spring of 1982, he had privately grieved for years afterwards — had always valued his family more than his loyalty to Voldemort. His bribery of Ministry officials after the Dark Lord's first fall to escape Azkaban ultimately was as much to ensure his wife and son would be able to live safely and in luxury as it was for him to stay clear of the Dementors. But he had gladly used lethal spells on his reborn daughter when the Death Eaters ran headlong into the Dark Lady of the Orient and three of her students — who also included Narcissa's niece Cassiopeia Lestrange — in the Hall of Prophecies in hopes of drawing Harry Potter clear of the safety of Hogwarts to strike him down. _No doubt, that was because of how much purebloods feared and loathed the Lady Tsukiko thanks to what she did during the War of Liberation_, the Malfoy matriarch mused. Still, once he HAD learned his daughter was alive and well, Lucius should have sent a missive apologizing for his actions against her. He didn't…which guaranteed that he would face Raven again at Hogwarts a year later, falling once more at her hands.

That Draco had done NOTHING to try to repair such a ghastly rift…

Narcissa jolted on hearing a soft chime. Her daughter reached into her jeans pocket — she was dressed in modern, trendy clothes that weren't too revealing even if she could still turn anyone who would be attracted to her into slobbering wrecks with just a look; _I wonder how poor Ronald deals with all the stupid boys drooling like hungry animals when he's with Raven_, she mused — to pull out a cell phone. "Malfoy," she called into it.

"We've got a problem, Raye," echoed in her ear.

"What is it, Ari?"

Hearing Raven's nickname for Ariel Goyle, Narcissa smiled…before she tensed on seeing a thunderous look cross her daughter's face. As the older woman automatically reached for her wand, Raven blinked as she listened to her friend's words before she nodded in understanding. "Right. I'll confirm it the instant my brother comes back from wherever the hell he is now, then get back to you. Thanks, Ari." She cut the connection and calmly — TOO calmly, Narcissa mused — put her phone away…before a litany of curses in Latin, Welsh, Japanese and Ariadnian exploded from her lips.

As Narcissa was fluent in the tongue of ancient Rome and passingly familiar with both the native languages of Wales and Japan — as she herself had never travelled to Nerio, her only exposure to the native tongue of the academic city-state of Ariadne was when she overheard Raven speak on her cell phone to friends she had made there; amongst them had been members of the city's famous Mage Knights like Emily Sevensheep and her lover Beatrix Monroe — she had little problem understanding what Raven was saying…even if it was unbelievably vulgar. After a couple of minutes of hearing that — Narcissa couldn't help but blush as Raven questioned the ancestry and sexual preferences of whatever fellow just earned her ire in graphic detail and literate Latin — the younger woman took a deep breath before she gave her mother an apologetic look. "Sorry about that."

"What was that all about?!" the older woman asked.

Raven gazed out to sea. "Daywalker vampires. Theo Nott is making an alliance with them to find some way to kill off every Avalonian on Earth."

Narcissa's jaw dropped in stunned disbelief on hearing that. Taking a moment to compose herself, she then weakly asked, "Is Draco involved in this?"

A curt nod answered her. "Yes."

Hearing that made the older woman wince as she felt yet another small part of her die. _Dear Merlin! Is this EVER going to end?!_ she moaned to herself…

* * *

Knockturn Alley (off Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, London), Hundings Helpful Healers (on the site of Borgin and Burkes), an hour before nightfall…

"So how was your last transformation, Kieran?"

"Just like becoming an animagus, I assume," Kieran Harper stated with an amused smile as he gazed on Rose Potter. "Of course, I'm not blessed with that wonderful telepathy of yours, Rose, so I really can't say," the former Slytherin seeker added.

Harry's sister grinned as she dispersed the scanning pentagrams she summoned to help in her examination of her current patient. Watching over this process was the owner and namesake of Hundings Helpful Healers, Master Healer Lamicho Hundings. A member of Hogwarts' NEWT class of 1973 and the Viscount of Dengie in the Wizengamot, the native of Bradwell in Essex became one of St. Mungo's star specialist healers by the time the First Purification War ended. Lamicho was called back to his alma mater to consult in the aftermath of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower at the end of the 1996-97 school year. An expert on all forms of lyncathropy who studied ways of improving the Wolfsbane potion on his spare time — natural for a Ravenclaw alumnus — he was summoned by Poppy Pomfrey to help a half-dozen students who had been scarred by a rampaging Fenrir Greyback and a horde of werewolves that had accompanied the Death Eaters to Hogwarts in hopes of slaying Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter. Once he got there, he was stunned to see the Boy-Who-Lived's mysterious sister — one of nearly a hundred witches who had been given new life thanks in part to the Curse of Helga Hufflepuff and the help of an unknown benefactor in the mid-1980s, then forced to attend Meridiana in Wales to learn her magic before she was apprenticed to the Dark Lady of the Orient in the spring of 1995 — using what appeared to be pure essence of monkshood on the victims' wounds. Horrified to see Rose use such a ghastly poison, Lamicho tried to push her clear before he found himself facing Harry Potter's soulsword…just as the bleeding wounds on Kieran Harper's arms dissolved into faint pink scars. Once that was done — and confirming that the other victims were showing some recovery — Rose then gazed in amusement at the older healer. "_I use ruby meson as a base for all my potions_," she calmly explained before she admonished her big brother for drawing a _**soulsword**_ of all things on a _healer_.

Both Poppy and Lamicho felt like ten types of idiot after hearing that.

Since the Battle of Hogwarts, Lamicho had taken his family fortune and opened a private clinic for werebeasts of all types in Knockturn Alley on the site of Borgin and Burkes; the magical curio shoppe was destroyed midway through Death Eater Season along with many neighbouring businesses as a way of delivering a fatal blow on Voldemort's support base. Much to the outrage of many traditionalists of the Wizengamot, the healer gladly and frequently consulted with Meridiana alumni such as Rose Potter when it came to special cases or helping develop a final cure for lyncathropy…which was actually brought to Earth from Nerio during the Middle Ages as a perverted variation of a neurodegenerative disorder that often struck various canine therianthrope tribes on Mars' sister planet. While such actions were seen as violating the letter of the Ministry Governance Act of 1705 and other laws that forbade any commerce with Meridiana alumni, Rose countered that by stating she was working for FREE; she was wealthy in her own right due to her working as an apprentice healer at both Meridiana and in Ariadne…and her healer's oaths forbade her from rejecting potential patients for any reason. When that was countered by a bill proposed by Draco Malfoy in 2002 to forbid ANY transaction of any sort with Meridiana alumni on pain of loss of magic and family fortune, that was shot down by a HOWLER from _**Buckingham Palace**_! To the horror of ALL the members of the Wizengamot save for people like Harry Potter — he had been the one who warned the Queen about this latest lame attempt by Voldemort's allies to take back the reins of power they effectively lost five years earlier — the Crown declared that if the leaders of wizarding Britain couldn't get their acts together and start _accepting_ their countrymen who went to Meridiana as having equal rights under the magical Constitution of the Realm, the Separation Act would be done away with and the magical lords of the United Kingdom would be absorbed into the House of Lords.

One didn't need to be Rowena Ravenclaw to guess what might have happened next.

But now that such restrictions had been chased away on Monday…

"Rose?"

Rose looked over as the privacy curtain blocking off the examination suite she was using parted to reveal Charlotte Crabbe. "Hey, Lotti! What's…?" Her voice then trailed off as she felt the billowing outrage from her old classmate's heart. "What?"

Charlotte handed her cell phone over. Rose looked at the screen before she scowled, then passed the device to Lamicho. On seeing what was there, the master healer gaped in horror. "Merlin! What are those idiots planning to do?!" he demanded.

"Start a war they can't win, Uncle Lami," Charlotte answered. Lamicho had been the one who delivered her late brother Vincent at St. Mungo's in the summer of 1980…and had also tended to a distraught Helena Crabbe when she miscarried her unborn daughter shortly after Voldemort's first fall. On meeting Charlotte for the first time in 1997, Lamicho gladly adopted her as spiritual kin with Helena's private approval; he himself had yet to find the right witch to marry as his work always consumed him. "Our sisters have made too many inroads with various vampire covens; whoever is leading this on the daywalkers' side won't get any support from people like Vlad Ṭepeṣ and Lucien Lacroix."

"Why are the daywalkers targeting your sisters, Lotti?" Kieran asked.

"They're afraid that we'll transform every Terran on the planet into Avalonians, thus making us all 'crystal-bloods,'" Charlotte stated…

…before Rose's cell phone beeped the warning that a multimedia message had just been sent to her. Taking it out of her pocket, Harry's sister brought up the new message on the view screen…and then she gaped. "Uh-oh!" she breathed out.

"What?!" the others in the room demanded.

"Rave just did a memory-scan of her brother," Rose reported as she tapped controls on her phone to bring up a holographic image. "Look at this."

An image appeared over the visual display. It was that of a raven-haired man appearing to be in his twenties, possessing dark hazel eyes. He was dressed quite conservatively even if his clothes wouldn't be seen as being too out of fashion for modern normal British society. While his skin was pale, it wasn't the ghostly white indicative of his being one of the undead. On seeing that image, Charlotte gaped in disbelief. "Oh, my God! That's Adam Sewell! What the hell's he doing still _**alive**_?!"

"You know this fellow?!" Lamicho demanded.

"He was the man many say was responsible for provoking the American Civil War in the 1860s, Uncle Lami," Rose reported. "His real name's unknown; 'Adam Sewell' was the alias he used when he was living in Mississippi before the war started."

"He probably got chased out of America by the Rail-Splitter during the Score and Four," Kieran commented as he stood up and moved to put on his shirt.

"President Lincoln destroyed him in 1863, just before Gettysburg," Rose reported.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Bloody hell!" Lamicho moaned out…

* * *

The Leaky Cauldron, fifteen minutes later…

"My, my, my…"

"How could this be possible, Mister President?"

Abraham Lincoln blinked on hearing that question before shaking his head. "I really wish I can answer that for you, Healer Hundings," the nigh-immortal vampire hunter calmly stated as he handed the cell phone back to Rose. "I critically wounded him with a punch to his stomach. My fist had my silver pocket watch wrapped around it, so I know he was badly hurt. We were crossing the Little Pipe Creek west of Union Bridge in Maryland at the time. Confederate raiders under John Mosby had set the bridge alight to prevent us from making a delivery of silver bullets needed to take down the vampires secretly fighting under Robert Lee's command." He smirked. "It was a trap to catch and destroy this man; he had been identified as the leader of his particular faction by Mollie Bean; if you haven't heard of her, she's a North Carolinian normal-born who first encountered him just after Fort Sumter and became an undercover agent for the Department of Magic even if she disguised herself as a man and fought under Robert Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia until she was 'exposed' as a woman after her capture in February of 1865." He then smiled in reminiscence as he recalled the tomboyish raven-haired magical federal marshal — Mollie was an alumnus of the Salem Mistresses Class of 1856, having graduated sixth in a class of fifty-four with masteries in potions and charms — who had served for two years with Company "D" of the 47th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry before her "capture" and "exposure"; it had been child's play for Lincoln's future successor, then-Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, to arrange for Mollie to disappear from Castle Thunder sometime after her "incarceration." "Of course, all the charges of her being a spy, much less her being insane, were falsified," he then added before getting back to his main story. "As for the silver used to wipe out the vampires under Lee's command, the Department of Magic arranged to have it directly apparated from Washington to Gettysburg so George Meade's troops could use it."

"Didn't the wizards of the southern states go with their states?" Lamicho asked.

Lincoln shook his head. "When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in 1787, those who were in on the secret of magic also advised the Executive Committee that wrote the magical clauses — the Magical Constitution, not to mince words — to that document. Since there were so few magicals in the thirteen states at the time, it was ultimately decided that there would only be ONE federal Department of Magic to serve as their governing body; no state-level magical departments were allowed. Because of that, almost all American magicals living in the southern states chose not to side with the Confederacy. Most took a 'wait and see' posture; they had problems with the way the Department of Magic ran their affairs, but weren't willing to launch a rebellion against Washington since the Magical Marshals — our version of your Corps of Law Aurors; Mollie Bean was one — swore a binding magical oath to both the normal and magical side of the Constitution in all its aspects on being called to service. They spent a lot of their time between '61 and '65 cleaning up the evidence of vampiric battles. By the time Gettysburg happened in the summer of '63, many of them were also helping slaves flee those who wanted to use them for food."

The others nodded. "So how could he have survived being gut-punched with a silver-coated fist, then falling into the burning wreckage of a bridge?" Harry asked.

"He was said to be five millennia old at the time of the Civil War, Big Brother," Rose noted. "He could have picked up some magic along the way."

"The _nŏksbae_, maybe?" Charlotte asked.

People gazed at the newly-ennobled Viscountess of Saxmundham. The word "_nŏksbae_" was applied to an ancient Korean ritual that had been used by magicals of all stripes in the Land of the Morning Calm since the days of Tan'gun-wanggŏm over four centuries before. What happened when one moved to create a _nŏksbae_ was that a dying magical would shear off a portion of his/her soul containing all his/her memories, then gift the fragment to a worthy heir; this would ensure that the knowledge of all aspects of one's clan magic would be passed on from generation to generation. However, unlike the rituals needed to create a horcrux, the _nŏksbae_ was _**never**_ meant to keep the dying magical alive; to do something like THAT was seen as a gross affront to the Lord of Heaven and would bring His Disfavour upon the idiot stupid enough to do such a thing. Eventually, trade with Nerio allowed the _nŏkspotchep'um_ concept to be developed during the early years of the Three Kingdoms period; this eventually allowed the concept of magical portraits to be developed. Harry himself learned of both the _nŏksbae_ and _nŏkspotchep'um_ processes thanks to Mun Aesup, a woman descent of a family that had served the various rulers of Korea from the days of Tan'gun's court in the long-lost city of Asadal near modern-day P'yŏng'yang.

Rose and Charlotte, of course, learned of that concept via Yomigawa Tsukiko.

"Or maybe a horcrux," the Man-Who-Won mused. "If Adam's both a vampire and magical, he would have the power and the skill to create such a thing."

Lincoln nodded; he knew through friends about what Tom Riddle had done to render himself effectively immortal. "And the blood-lust, of course," he added.

The others grimaced on hearing that. "What can we do, sir?" Kieran Harper asked. The young werewolf — who, along with others who had been nearly killed by Greyback and his friends in 1997, volunteered to trial run anything people like Lamicho Hundings and his co-workers developed in hopes of finding a final cure to lyncathropy — had come to this meeting in a show of support to the woman who had made his life much more bearable over the last twelve years. While he wouldn't openly court Rose for many reasons — the least of which being that she was not soul-bonded by Avalonian traditions; even if she was effectively a "Terran-turned-Avalonian," Rose was bound by whatever genetic imperatives her DNA forced on her, the drive to seek out one's _marei'cha_ being one of them — he did see her as a friend; the idea of ANYONE threatening Rose Potter would have every lyncathrope in Great Britain seizing what weapon they could to seek out and kill the monsters contemplating such a ghastly thing. "If Malfoy and his friends support this, that's treason against the Crown! Are they trying to lose their magic?!"

"That's probably why Nott made a deal with Sewell, Kieran," Harry noted. "Vampires don't acknowledge any sort of normal or magical authority over them even if it falls on the various national magical ministries to keep them under some decent control except when they're demon-possessed and become the responsibility of the Slayers. All Nott and his friends have to do is indicate where potential targets could be located, then step back and let the vampires go to town. It's no wonder they went after the Schwarze Mädchen. If they were trapped in that cave for all these years…"

"A big smörgåsbord of magical power, all for the taking," Rose muttered.

The others nodded before a contemplative trill escaped Lincoln's lips. "Maybe…"

"What?" Harry asked.

"Mister Potter, I once heard Mollie tell me of a process by which a virgin witch could call down the power of Magic Itself on an enemy," the former lawyer said, his hazel eyes twinkling in amusement. "Given that those poor ladies were just REBORN as Avalonians, it stands to rights that they are all still quite 'pure.'"

Harry gaped at him before a smirk crossed his face. "Right…!"

"I don't get it," Kieran said.

"Lad, it's simple," Lamicho stated. "In first year at Hogwarts — usually during the first broom-riding lesson — witches have their hymen painlessly shattered to ensure that their virginal blood would never be used in any dark ritual. That also happens at Meridiana as well, also during the first year of studies." He indicated Rose and Charlotte with a wave of his hand. "That's been standard procedure since well before the Separation Act was passed. You don't WANT to know what sort of power a dark wizard could muster up from a virgin's blood." He sighed. "Could it be done, Harry?"

"I think so," Harry stated before shrugging. "Well, if Theo and his friends think they can get away with this, they're sorely mistaken. Just have Brigadier Gibbon declare the Vindictam Sanguinis on behalf of her command and Magic itself should support that call."

"Persuade them to not kill them, Harry," Charlotte stated. "Make them use Gonebren."

Lamicho and Kieran paled on hearing _**that**_ name. While dealing with such a ghastly thing as treason against the Crown was one thing, the very THREAT of the Maze Amongst the Rocks — even if it was not directed on them — was enough to make even the most liberal traditionalist soil themselves. "Then I'll need to speak to the Queen to get the keys," Harry breathed out.

"May I offer my services?"

People looked on Lincoln, who had an amused smile on his face. Harry blinked before he nodded, grinning in turn. With that, the vampire hunter pulled out a cell phone to dial a series of numbers. A moment later, a voice called out from the speakers, "Yes? Who is this?"

"Good evening, Elizabeth," the former president said. "Did I interrupt something?"

A surprised gasp answered him. "Abraham Lincoln!" the woman on the other side of the line cried out with delight. She then pause before saying, "Wait! Your signal's coming in as clear as daylight! Where on Earth are you calling from?!"

"I'm in London right now, staying at the Leaky Cauldron."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then…

"I assume Harry Potter is with you?"

Lincoln smiled. "With his delightful sister and Ms. Crabbe, plus friends."

"Come here at once," the Queen ordered…

* * *

Aboard the _Freedom_ alongside the Avalon bioroid factory, an hour later…

"Tea service!"

Luna Lovegood gasped on hearing that cheerful voice before she smiled as a pretty woman appearing to be about eighteen or so, possessing long, straight dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, came into the room. In her hand was a small tray with a tea kettle and a couple of cups, plus all the trimmings. "Thank you, First Sergeant Mitchell."

Regina Mitchell smiled. "You know how to read normal rank insignia?" the only American member of the Black Maidens asked as she placed the tray down on a table located in the middle of the observation bubble the magical naturalist from Devon had come to so she could gaze on the incredible scenery around her. Regina was currently dressed in a surplus pair of battle dress without any sort of insignia save her family name on a tape over the right breast pocket, **U.S. ARMY** on a tape over her left breast pocket and metal pin rank insignia on the flaps of her collars displaying the three chevrons over three rockers surrounding a hollow diamond insignia of a first sergeant.

"Well, given how much you all must have felt betrayed when you were freed of the _Führerprinzip_ oath, I don't think it's right to address you as '_Hauptscharführerin der Schwarze Mädchen und Hauptwachthexe der Magische Reichsarmee_.'"

The older woman giggled before she poured some tea. "You must think I'm crazy," she admitted as Luna took up her cup. "Bright young American witch coming over to Europe to fight in a magical war supporting the _**Nazis**_ of all people! I'm not one of the Volksdeutsche that flocked back to the Fatherland to support the Führer and his cause in their time of need. My ancestors came with the first migrants to Plymouth on the _Mayflower_, fought to free our land from Britain in the Revolutionary War and fought for the Union in the Civil War." She sipped her tea. "I had friends across the 'pond' who persuaded me that Master Gellert was doing the right thing. All the mugalophobia that was rampant across Europe at the time just sickened me. Just because my father was a lawyer and my mother was a socialite doesn't mean my magic was different than someone who could trace their magical ancestors all the way back to the time of Merlin."

"True," Luna mused with a nod of understanding before sipping her tea. "I've done a lot of extensive studies on all of you girls, especially all the non-Germans and non-Austrians who flocked to Master Gellert's side. You always were at your best when it came to fighting the Soviets, weren't you? I assume it's because of the various 'red scares' that ran rampant across America after the October Revolution."

Her host nodded. "Yes. Supporting one's fellow citizen is one thing; it's a simple act of Christian charity in the long term. But the forced collectivization of whole societies out of some master economic plan — to say anything of denouncing religion as the 'opiate of the masses' — is something different. I've never liked communists and I never will. I couldn't understand why was it so many Americans flocked across to fight as part of the International Brigades to support President Azaña in Spain when the Caudillo moved to overthrow the Second Republic." Before she became one of the Black Maidens, Regina Mitchell had been part of a group of magicals assigned by Gellert Grindelwald to protect the fighters of the Condor Legion against Spanish wizards and witches who supported the preservation of the Republic, much less whatever foreign mercenaries were fighting at their side. "Given how much Iósef Stálin was manipulating things behind the scenes from his offices in Moscow, it was pretty obvious to me." She then wryly smirked. "Then again, Adolf Hitler wasn't so much better…though we never found out the real truth of it until after the bastard shot himself dead."

"How did it feel?"

Regina blink. "The oath?"

"Yes."

A tired sigh answered her. "When I took it, I believed I was doing the right thing. You've met Master Gellert, haven't you?" At Luna's nod, Regina shrugged. "He needed the support of the Party to press his own goals, so he had no choice but to play along with what Himmler suggested. He hoped that when it was all over, the oath would be relaxed and we could carry on with our lives. So we did it. When we took the oath, we swore our magic to the service of the Führer and the cause of National Socialism. Fortunately for us, Hitler didn't care to send us to America to fight Raeburn and her friends, not like he did the Übermenschen." As Luna nodded, the Massachusite witch added, "But when the oath bond was lifted away from us, the _memories_…!"

Tears filled her eyes…and then she gasped as Luna came over to embrace her. Chuckling in pained thanks at the show of support from the English pureblood witch — who, if this was anytime during Grindelwald's War, Regina might have killed without a second's hesitation if Luna had the ill-luck to get in her way — the American turned to give the other woman a tender kiss on the lips before allowing Luna to pull back. "You went through it, didn't you?" she asked before sipping her tea. "Tsukiko-sensei let you touch the Tsūshō, didn't she? When she was training your friend?"

"She did," Luna admitted before sipping her own tea. "Tsukiko-sensei was given carte blanche clearance by the ICMC to do everything she could to prepare Harry and all those who were ready to support him to deal with what Prophecy dumped on his head when he was a newborn baby. Professor Dumbledore had been humiliated by Sensei at the Department of Mysteries; she used a soulsword to shatter the loyalty lock the Elder Wand always forged with the person who had won it in battle, so he wasn't as powerful as he might have seemed before that fight…not to mention what his later encounter with the Resurrection Stone and the horcrux within it did to him. He wasn't given his positions as Chief Warlock or Supreme Mugwump back after Cornelius Fudge and Dolores Umbridge did their best to publicly discredit him, so he couldn't do a thing to stop Sensei. Once he was out of the way, Sensei brought in Nekane and we took off from there."

Regina grimaced. "I read about what that Umbridge bitch did. Nasty piece of work."

"Yes, she was…but the Hollows dealt with her quite thoroughly."

The Massachusite nodded. H.M.P. Gonebren had been opened at the command of King George VI after the start of hostilities in 1939 to serve as a prisoner of war camp for members of the Magische Reichsarmee captured in the field. While none of the Schwarze Mädchen had the ill-luck to be sent to the Maze Amongst the Rocks, many of their brothers-in-arms weren't so lucky…and would emerge from that hellhole as pale shadows of their former selves, consigned to long-term care at Germany's equivalent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Magische Krankenhaus Kentigernus in modern-day Göttingen. Then again, even if the Hollows were born from the vengeful spirits of normals slain over the years by evil wizards and witches, they had all been British when they were living corporeal beings. Patriotism and loyalty to the Crown was one of the things that marked the Hollows as a whole; the creator of Gonebren was obviously someone who view that type of loyalty as right and proper.

"So how did it feel to you?" Regina then asked.

"I wasn't as affected by it as others were the day it was brought to Hogwarts…"

* * *

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (on the north shore of Loch Eigheach west of Kinloch Rannoch in the Council Area of Perth and Kinross, Scotland), Wednesday 4 September 1996, after supper… _

_"So how does it feel to have your sister back, mate?" _

_Neville Longbottom seemed to glow like the morning sun as he and other members of the Defence Association made their way down a familiar seventh floor corridor in the academic wing of the ancient castle above the main library. "It's like a little slice of Heaven, Ron!" the future Marquess of Holdenhurst stated as he, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger led a troupe of fifty students to the place where the painting of Barnabas the Barmy teaching mountain trolls how to perform ballet hung opposite the hidden doorway to the Room of Requirements. "When Harry invited me to come down to Grimmauld Place to meet Grace, it…" He shook his head. "Well…" _

_Ginny Weasley and Lavender Brown reached over to squeeze his shoulders in a show of support. "How did your grandmother react to it?" Hermione asked as people stopped, all noting that there was a visible door in the wall where the Room's entrance was. _

_Ron went over to try the door before he noted it was locked. "Harry?!" he called out after knocking on the door several times. "You in there?!" _

_"Just a sec', Ron!" came back from inside the Room. _

_As the others relaxed, they turned their attention back to Neville and what he was saying. "Gran was just beside herself, 'Mione," he stated before he sighed. "She's a little sad, too. Grace can't say a thing about who it was that gave her life back; neither can Rose, Raven nor Cassi, much less Lotte, Ariel and all the others. Uncle Algernon tried to find some way to get that secret out of her, but couldn't do it. It's no magical oath; it's something WORSE than that!" As people gaped in shock at him, Neville shook his head. "I can't imagine what it is, though." _

_"How many was it altogether?" Zhāng Qiū — known to her friends by the more common English reading of her name, "Cho Chang" — asked. _

_"Ninety-seven," Luna Lovegood reported; she had interviewed Rose Potter, Raven Malfoy and Cassiopeia Lestrange for the_ Quibbler _in mid-July. "You-Know-Who and his people wiped out all the unborn children of Rhosan Green back in 1979 because none of their parents would bow to him. All — including magical quintuplets born of the Meretrices of Wye — were brought back to life by whomever saved Grace, Rose and the others." She sighed. "Such a pity that the Roll Book here didn't pick up on any of them. They simply had no choice but to go to Meridiana to learn their magic." _

_"Why do people have problems with Meridiana?" Colin Creevey asked. "I've read about the Thousand Master and Ala Rubra. They saved everyone on Nerio from the Mage of the Beginning. They'd be Gryffindors if they came here! What's wrong with them?!" _

_Many of the others nodded. "It's all because of power and influence in the Wizengamot, Colin," Susan Bones answered. Now ennobled as the Baroness of Bute thanks to the death of her aunt Amelia weeks before, she still had a haunted look on her face because of what happened to her last surviving relative at the hands of the Death Eaters. Atop that, she — like many of her brother and sister Hufflepuffs — was still outraged over what happened to their housemate Sally-Anne Perks just before the Easter holidays when it was revealed that she had formed a_ **soul-bonding** _with the eldest of the Meretrice quintuplets, Libera, who had graduated with distinction from Meridiana a year ago and was now working for the Special Operations Division of the British Library. "Meridiana alumni have never been shy about dealing with muggles, though I once heard that they only select people with some sort of magical potential to form pactio bonds with. A squib can work just as much as a fully-trained witch, wizard or other magical." _

_"Stupid!" Colin's kid brother Dennis spat out with a shake of his head. _

_"Indeed, Young Master Dennis, it is grossly foolish. But we endure." _

_People gasped as they snap-drew their wands and scanned around… _

_…just as an invisibility screen was dropped to reveal a smiling woman possessing the dusky skin indicative of African or Mediterranean ancestry, though she had rusty red hair tied in a long braid to her hips and stormy grey eyes. She was dressed in very fashionable civilian clothes. There was no sign of a wand anywhere on her person. "Oh, hello, Libera," Luna said with a smile as she slipped her wand away. _

_Hearing that name, the Hufflepuffs all grinned as they relaxed, nodding to the wife of their former housemate. "Greetings and felicitations, Lady Luna," Libera said, a noblewoman's prim tones echoing in her voice. "And by the way, my friends, you all showed excellent reflexes. I'm sure you'll learn many things now that the International Conference is taking direct interest in the affairs of this poor land." _

_"How did you get here, Lady Libera?" Alice Tolipan — one of the two Slytherins who had joined the D.A.; her family, despite their being "pure" by British standards, utterly didn't care at all for racist monsters like Dolores Umbridge — wondered. _

_"A special compensation issued by the International Conference for the duration of the current emergency, Mistress Alice. It grants us unfettered access to the castle," Libera stated as she knocked on the door to the room. "Is all ready, Lord Harold?!" _

_"It's open!" _

_Libera opened the door and waved the others inside. They all walked in…and then stopped on seeing the small crowd of Slytherins standing close to the head of the room to both sides of Harry Potter. Amongst them were several of Harry's own year-mates: Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Millicent Bulstrode and Blaise Zabini. "What are you guys doing here?!" Luca Caruso — he was the only other Slytherin of the original D.A. — immediately demanded. "Harry, did you…?" _

_"I did," Harry stated before he gazed on Ron. "And no objections from you, alright?!" he sternly declared, which made the youngest Weasley son wince on sensing the cold tone in his best friend's voice. "Now's not the time for that garbage! These people here have all proved to me their willingness not only to join the Association, but not to betray us to Voldemort and his friends." Ignoring the mass chorus of winces from the other students on hearing the Dark Lord's battle name, Harry pointed to the onyx black crystal about the size of a rugby football on a frame brazier in front of him. "Last year, we were a bunch of amateurs driven by a righteous cause. This year, we won't fool around. You all read what happened in the Department of Mysteries. You all read what the ICMC decided to do because of Voldemort." Again, he ignored the winces. "We've got a very simple choice before us this year. We either make it very clear to the ICMC that we can guide our society into a better future…or we better get ready to face the modern version of the Magische Reichsarmee." As the magically-raised present all croaked in shock on hearing that dire statement, Harry crossed his hands behind his back. "And as Libera there can tell you because she got it straight from the Queen herself, if we lose ICMC recognition, you can kiss the Separation Act good-bye!" _

_"Merlin! That's can't be true!" Lavender gasped. _

_"It IS true, Lavender-chan," a woman coldly stated from nearby. _

_Neville, Ron and Ginny gargled on hearing that familiar voice as another invisibility screen was dropped, revealing seven people dressed in the white-and-red kimono-and-hakama uniform of Shintō shrine maidens. "Good evening, minna-dono," Yomigawa Tsukiko stated, not reacting as the door into the Room slammed shut while she walked over to stand close to her new student, stopping to gaze on each of the D.A. As she did that, her apprentices moved to stand off to either side of the Slytherins…save for Rose Potter, who — much to the private delight of all the other D.A. members — embraced her brother from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Amazing as this sounds to me even now, Harry-kun has convinced me you all have a modicum of talent when it comes to magical combat. Since Severus-dono is going to do everything he can to sabotage your studies in his class this year — yes, even to those such as Pansy-chan and her friends who have joined you today — in hopes of giving Voldemort-dono's people a chance against you all, it is up to my friends and I to help you gain such competency in magical combat that you will be have a chance of surviving a duel with Alastor Moody." _

_Jaws dropped in stunned shock. "We can't be THAT good!" Parvati Patil exclaimed. _

_"Parvati-chan, don't undersell yourself," Tsukiko calmly stated. "I couldn't help but overhear Colin-kun speak of Nagi Springfield in the corridor outside. Does anyone know why he was given the nickname 'Thousand Master?'" On seeing a chorus of confused looks respond to that question, the Dark Lady of the Orient smiled. "Tell them, Grace-chan." _

_"Hai, Sensei," Grace Longbottom said with a grin. Possessing the same dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes Neville had, she was lean and muscled. The sharper-eyed of the D.A. were quick to note that Neville's sister carried herself with a very confidant demeanour that told anyone that she could thrash a dozen opponents without breaking a sweat. "Some say that Nagi Springfield is the master of a thousand separate spells, hexes and jinxes. That's a lie; he actually dropped out of Meridiana before he would have graduated and been granted the rank of Discipulus Magi…though as to what he might have picked up when he was out seeking his fortune, that's never been confirmed." As people gaped at her, she smirked. "Some claim that Nagi made pactio bonds with a thousand women to boost his magic. I can't confirm that one way or another, but it is the common practice of people like myself to keep the pactios to a very dull roar." As people laughed on hearing that, Grace shrugged. "What I CAN confirm about the man is this: He is a master at magical combat, a shrewd tactician and strategist, one hell of a great swordsman and he's taught himself to think on his feet. That's what we all intend to help each and every one of YOU become before we're finished with you." She pointed to her brother, then Hermione, then Ginny, then Luna and a few others. _

_"You think the Death Eaters like my father are scary?" Raven Malfoy added. "They're only scary if you LET them be scary! The average combat skill of someone who fights for Tom Riddle — from what Rose, Cassi and I saw in the Department of Mysteries — is, for the most part, utterly_ **pitiful**_!" As people gaped in disbelief at her, the platinum blonde with the light blue eyes smirked. "What they have going for them is the ability to kill and maim without wanting to stop. That's it!" She made a wave of her hand towards the brazier holding the dark crystal in front of Harry, causing it to levitate. As people goggled, Draco's sister smirked. "Did you know that save for Riddle himself, NONE of the Death Eaters have any skills in what you call 'wandless magic?'" _

_"We'll be getting an expert in wandless casting here soon," Harry reported as Raven placed the brazier on the floor. "She's actually Nagi Springfield's niece Nekane; she was a classmate of Rose's at Meridiana and is currently apprenticing to become a basic magical teacher at the school. By the time we leave school in June, we are ALL going to be able to cast wandlessly and without spoken words. Sensei's already started with me. It's not as hard as you might think it is; it's actually learning how to master the same type of accidental magic you all experienced before your first year here." As people gaped, he smirked. "Riddle's idiots won't be expecting anything like that." _

_"Much less using the so-called 'unforgivables' on the Dark Marks those idiots wear," Cassiopeia added. "You probably heard how I killed my uncle Rabastan back in June. I'll admit that I used the_ Morsmordre Avada Kedavra _on him." As people gasped in shock on hearing that, Bellatrix's daughter grinned. "But he tried to kill me first even after he and his brother both clued into who I was, so I had the excuse to take him down. And I targeted his Dark Mark even if the curse ultimately killed him; it's not my fault that he allowed that idiot Riddle to bind his very LIFE to that mark!" She then sighed as the others in the room all grimly nodded in understanding. "Even if he was an evil little shit, he was still my uncle. I couldn't muster the hate or anger necessary to strike him down directly…but I_ **could** _turn my hate and anger on his Dark Mark. I despise what that damned mark ultimately means…and with that, I can destroy it and whatever idiot stupid enough to get himself or herself branded with it. After all, it's only a_ **magical construct**_! Do your laws protect something like_ **that** _from the Killing Curse, to say anything of the Cruciatus Curse or the Imperius Curse?!" _

_"Of course not!" Terry Boot snapped. _

_"Good," Tsukiko declared. "Minna-dono, I will be very honest with you all. If I had my army from the War of Liberation at my side right now, I could conquer Britain in less than a WEEK! Why?! Because — no thanks in part to your esteemed headmaster! — you've been allowed to believe that whatever happens beyond the walls of this castle is no different than what you've dealt with inside this castle! That's been happening for YEARS now! You can't allow yourselves to be ruled by the same type of combat ethics your parents' generation tried to use against Voldemort-dono the first time around. That's what got six thousand innocent people killed before Harry-kun's mother struck the fool down in 1981. Neville-kun and Harry-kun both can explain to you all in graphic detail where that primrose path ultimately leads to! If you tried the same stupid idiocy THIS time around, you've lost before the first spell is cast." She then smirked. "However, I do realize that you've had to endure very sloppy instruction in your magical defence and other classes over the years, so it's time for some shock therapy to get you all into the proper mood." She then gazed on the brazier in front of Harry before nodding. "Show them, Harry-kun." _

_"Hai, Sensei." _

_And with that, he reached over to place his hand on the onyx surface of the crystal held in the brazier. As people watched, his skin turned nearly white as a croak of mind-numbing horror escaped him, his eyes tearing as pure AGONY crossed his face. Before Hermione or Ron — much less Pansy or Daphne — could move to pull him away from that thing, Rose's hands shot out as she effortlessly formed a bubble of energy around her brother to ensure they couldn't touch him. As people watched wide-eyed, Harry — after what seemed like a mind-numbing eternity; it was actually only ten seconds — then gasped as he pulled his hand away, his eyes flooding with grief and horror as he gazed on the dark crystal before him. After a moment, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head to the crystal. "Never again!" he solemnly whispered. "Never again…!" _

_"The Tsūshō…!" _

_Eyes locked on Luna, who was staring in wide-eyed awe at the crystal that had hurt Harry so. "What is that, Luna?" Neville demanded as Rose moved to comfort her brother. _

_"Before she launched the War of Liberation in 1939, Tsukiko-sensei went on fact-finding missions across Asia and Africa to see for herself — and EXPERIENCE for herself — what the magicals of the various European colonies lived like," the daughter of the owner of the_ Quibbler _reported. "While she was travelling, she couldn't ignore the simple fact that too many innocent people were SUFFERING because of those magical loyalty locks the ministries in London, Paris, Brussels and the Hague — and yes, Rome, Madrid and Lisbon, too — forced on people who never wished our ancestors ill-will and only wanted to live their lives in peace and happiness, to say anything of practicing their own type of magic without any unreasonable restrictions from the old ICW. Over time, Sensei began collecting memory copies of magicals subjected to that in the Tsūshō." She indicated the black crystal that had so easily dropped the "Chosen One" to his knees. "Before she launched her first attack into Indochina, she made EVERY warrior who fought with her army touch the Tsūshō…so they would understand deep in their hearts the REAL reasons they were fighting." _

_People gaped as they stared wide-eyed at the Tsūshō…just as Harry got back to his feet. Taking a deep breath, he wiped his face clean before he gazed on the other D.A. members. "You want to be in the Defence Association this year?" he hoarsely declared, his green eyes flashing with iron determination. "You want to stop being one of the wizarding sheep that Voldemort and his friends want you to be? You want to learn how to survive and make sure your families survive?" He pointed at the crystal that served as a physical reminder of a horrible time in the histories of millions across Asia and Africa. "Touch that first! If you can't bring yourself to do that, don't bother wasting my time or Sensei's time." _

_The other members of the D.A. save Luna gaped in stunned disbelief at him…_

* * *

"…there were a lot of people who were quite reticent on touching the Tsūshō…but they wanted to live even more, so they did it," Luna finished. "Zhāng Qiū had, by then, got over the loss of Cedric Diggory and — before the start of her last year at Hogwarts — met up with Kathleen Johnson, one of the Avalonian-Britons who had been created as auxiliary observers for their Niphentaxian masters; she was based out of Glasgow. They didn't bond until after the DNA loyalty lock on pure-born Avalonians was broken back in February by the Earth Angel." She nodded as Regina scowled on being reminded yet again about what her newly-adopted countrywomen had endured. "Of course, Kathy knew about Qiū's magic…though since Qiū believed Kathy was just a normal Terran, she was obliged under the Statute to stay quiet about her powers. These days, both run a branch of the Technomancy Shoppe in Bonham Alley, Glasgow's magical shopping district."

Regina nodded. "You care for her, don't you?"

"I do," Luna admitted with a smile, realizing that the Massachusite witch's newly-gifted empathy was picking up her feelings for her former housemate. "Qiū was always called by a really warped version of her name by most of the people at Hogwarts, 'Cho Chang.' There was no respect to her being ethnically Chinese. No decent attempts at trying to say her name properly…to say anything of using proper Oriental naming order! This was the very same thing people like Lì Sǔ, Mun Aesup and her siblings endured when they went to Hogwarts. It was just disgusting!" She breathed out. "When I showed her how much I was willing to respect her and where she came from, she became an adopted older sister to me, protecting me from those of my housemates who didn't care for the way I look on the world and did horrid things to me like stealing my personal belongings and hiding them from me. In turn, I comforted her and helped her recover from losing Cedric like she did." A wicked look then crossed her face. "Of course, when I went back for my OWL year after Tom Riddle's return to corporal form was exposed to the general public, Tsukiko-sensei was willing to put some nasty hexes and jinxes on my belongings, which left quite an impression on my tormentors."

The older woman shook her head. "You'll find bullies anywhere you go, Luna," she noted…before she tensed. "What on Earth…?!" she hissed out…

…as the familiar chiming noise of a materialiser echoed from nearby. Both turned as two columns of light produced two very familiar people to Luna. "Qiū! Kathy!" the daughter of the owner of the _Quibbler_ yelped in delight as she rose up.

"Damn! Why'd you insist on us coming here THIS way, Kathy?!" Zhāng Qiū growled as she glared in annoyance at the dark-eyed twenty-something with the wavy auburn hair who had accompanyed her here.

Regina was quick to sense that the protest from the Chinese-Scot was mollified by the love she felt for the Avalonian-Scot beside her. She was also quick to sense that Qiū herself was a Terran-turned-Avalonian; no doubt, that had been done right after the Liberation. "Because we don't have Star Flares available for civilian transport and time's of the essence, Xiánqī," Kathy Johnson said with a teasing smile as she gently grasped her bond-mate's hand, that making Qiū turn a fine shade of crimson.

The former Ravenclaw seeker and now technomancy mistress smiled as she raised her lover's hand up so she could courtly kiss it. She then turned to warmly embrace Luna. "How are you, Yuèzǐ?" she tenderly asked as she ruffled the younger woman's hair.

"Happy that good people have been brought back, Qiūgōng," Luna said as she kissed Qiū on the cheek before she moved to introduce her old housemate and her lover to Regina.

Hugs and kisses were exchanged before Luna excused herself to get more tea cups and supplies. "So how are you adjusting, sister?" Kathy asked as she gazed with concern at the Massachusite. "This must be horrendously disorientating for you."

"Not as much as it might be for some of my own sisters," Regina admitted as they relaxed in the chairs. "Much that the sheer scale of the technological gap between what I'm used to from the 1930s and 1940s and what you people have is quite overwhelming, I'm a big fan of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon." Noting the confused look crossing Qiū's face, the older woman added, "They're science fiction heroes that appeared in pulp magazines and newspaper comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s, Madame Zhāng. They speculated on things like travelling to other planets and encountering alien civilizations long before rocket technology was developed by people such as Professor Robert Goddard and _Freiherr_ Wernher von Braun."

"I know how you feel," Qiū admitted. "My family is quite modern as wizarding families in Britain come, yet some of the things our normal neighbours dealt with before I went to Salem to learn technomancy were totally beyond my understanding. Of course, being bonded to Kathy here helps a lot with all the things her sisters brought here in February." She scowled. "Though I still hate those bloody materialisers! They're just a damned accident waiting to happen! Mark my words on that!"

"Dearest, you can have accidents with the floo, apparition and portkeys," Kathy chided, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "Stop trying to focus Doctor McCoy too much."

Qiū stuck her tongue out…then moaned as her lover leaned over to devour it with her lips. By then, Luna came back with another tray full of cups and tea bags. Coming with her were two of Qiū's and Luna's sister Ravenclaws. "Hey, Qiū!" Lì Sǔ called out, grinning as the older woman's cheeks reddened to the shade of ripe cherries at being caught in such an act of intimacy with her soul-mate. "So your bond-mate forced you to risk having your molecules scattered all over the galaxy, eh?!"

"That's not funny, Sǔ!" Qiū snapped back…before she blinked on sensing bubbling amusement inside the hearts of her friends. "Oh, Merlin! What's going on?!"

"Hermione has discovered in Elizabeth Gibbon a sister hyper-intellect, Qiū," Luna said as she prepared tea. "After all the basic pleasantries were done away with, both began to debate everything under the sun." She giggled. "Did you know that the brigadier also used a time turner to sneak in some extra classes at Hogwarts when she was there?"

"Merlin! No way!" Qiū gasped.

"Elizabeth is a sister eagle, Qiū," Lisa stated before nodding her thanks as Luna handed her a cup of tea. "Right now, 'Mione's being bombarded with all the incredible applications the Schwarze Mädchen developed during the war for _**all five**_ exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration to help them survive in the battlefield. Sǔ, Daph and I were BARELY able to keep up with HALF of what Elizabeth was saying!" She shook her head. "It was a bloody crime when the Americans and the Soviets demanded that the Magische Reichsarmee and the Schwarze Mädchen unconditionally surrender after Hitler killed himself. All the knowledge and experience they have…"

"How do we get around the people who want their hides for what they did during the war, Lisa?" Sǔ asked. "There are still a lot of old folks who are carrying a huge grudge."

Her old year-mate nodded in understanding. "Well, if push comes to shove, they can all migrate to the States or Canada," Regina mused. "I know that I was formally exonerated for what I did by President Truman in 1950 when Tsukiko-sensei went to bat for me and explained why the ICMC passed that resolution wiping the slate clean for all of us."

The others nodded. "Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain are also places people like you can go to," Lisa mused. "You were all fully exonerated there. The Bundesmagieministerium in Berlin still has all your personal effects in storage, including your wands."

"But would they need them now?" Luna asked. "They didn't have the Neuwied Test back then, but it's clearly obvious to me that their magical levels have increased quite a lot. Look what happened to Qiū and you when you underwent your body-swaps."

Qiū and Lisa nodded. "What's the Neuwied Test?" a curious Regina asked.

"It's a way to determine total magical power and potential skill level," Sǔ explained. "It was developed in the early 1980s by a German unspeakable named Johannes Neuwied. Average score for wizards and witches is between 110-180 points."

The American hummed before she nodded. "We came up with something similar back in '41," she then reported before closing her eyes and concentrating.

Qiū, Kathy and Lisa were quick to sense their host sending out a mental command. A moment later, a slender yet muscular woman about the same physical age as their host came into the room. Dressed in German combat fatigues with the dome framed diamond over two chevrons insignia of a _Stabsfeldwebel_ on her shoulders, she was a tomboyish woman with pale blue-grey eyes and stylishly-cut auburn hair. "Is there something the matter, _meine Kaiserin_?" she teased with an amused twinkle in her eyes…though all the Britons in the room were quick to see that the newcomer was clearly in love with Regina Mitchell.

"Chris!" Regina snarled. "What did I tell you about calling me that?!"

"To keep doing it?" the newcomer teased.

An annoyed scream escaped the American as Luna clapped her hands in delight. "Oh, my! I'm so glad the Vinur Drekar found you girls!" she declared, making both Regina and her opposite number in the First Battalion, Christine Schultze, stare wide-eyed at her. "I know you'll just stir up all sorts of wonderful trouble for we mere poor mortals!"

"You actually LIKE us?!" Christine exclaimed. "After what we did?!"

"You all fought to make a place for normal-borns all across Europe, Sergeant-Major Schultze," Lisa stated. "I'm a half-blood. So's Sǔ here, not to mention Hannah and Susan. Qiū's a pureblood, but she's been raised to respect normal culture. Atop that, she bonded to Kathy here, who's ultimately an _**alien**_ of all things! Daph's a pureblood, but she's pretty open to new things; you can't be an Unspeakable while being close-minded. Luna's ALWAYS respected all cultures regardless if they're magical or non-magical, much less human or non-human. 'Mione's a normal-born. The man who got rid of our last Dark Lord was a half-blood and normal-raised." She sighed. "You guys might not realize it, but you blazed a huge path for a lot of people in Europe even if the traditionalists you wanted to destroy have tried again and again to turn back all the changes that came in your wake every chance they could! We admire you guys. Luna's right; it's a wonderful thing you all are alive and well."

"I know Master Gellert will die a happy man now," Luna added as her eyes teared. "You were the most precious thing to him even when he wasn't obsessing about the Greater Good. You were the living symbols of the perfect society to him, one that accepted magical and non-magical — and by extension, metahuman and non-metahuman, human as well as non-human — as equals, living without stupid secrecy statutes that were shown to have long outlived their usefulness when the Steel Angels were all created in the 1920s!" She then gazed on Regina. "And the Immortals will be happy to know you all are alright."

The Massachusite combat witch blinked. "Carl…?"

The Devonian magical naturalist nodded. "He was there early this morning, escorting Tsukiko-sensei on her yearly visit to see Master Gellert. A lot of the others who were there at the Battle of the Gates — Duncan MacLeod, Robert and Angelina de Valicourt, Erno Jocszak and Alicia Mackenzie — were there, too; this was the first time since the sixty-fifth anniversary of that battle that they all were able to come together without worrying about people hunting their heads. Even Adam Pierson — who was a good friend of David Wisden — also came, as did Amanda Deveraux."

"Where are they now, Luna?" Sǔ asked.

"They're still at Nurmengard. Since it's Holy Ground, they're safe from whatever silly fellow might be out there who'd want to go headhunting."

Groans escaped the others. "_Frau_ Lovegood, that was not funny!" Christine moaned.

"Christine, be assured that I would never joke about something like that."

"Never mind, Chris," Regina cut in. "Do Special Test Nine on me."

The native of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony blinked before she raised her hand towards her beloved friend and whispered something in an archaic dialect of German. A moment later, a beautiful opaque parchment appeared before Christine. Gazing at it, she gaped for a moment before she stared at the American. "What was your last test result?"

"Group 5K. Why?" Regina wondered.

"Well, you're now in Group 9D," Christine reported, which made the native of Plymouth gape in disbelief. "_Lieber Gott_! What the hell happened to you, Regina?!"

"Wait a second!" Sǔ said as she drew her wand and began whispering an incantation.

A moment later, a ghostly parchment appeared before her. "Neuwied Test score for First Sergeant Regina Mitchell of the United States, Salem Witches Institute Mistresses Class of 1933, is 439 points," the Chinese-Briton from Sheffield in South Yorkshire reported.

Lisa drew out her dataPADD to bring up her notepad program. "Okay, got it, Sǔ! Also noting that in the Black Maidens Special Test Nine, First Sergeant Mitchell rates in Group 9D. Regina, can you do a test of your friend here, please?"

"Alright," Regina said as she waved her hand towards Christine. A parchment then appeared before her a moment later. "Group 9G," she reported.

"WHAT?!" the Lower Saxon combat witch exclaimed. "That's almost as powerful as _Frau Majorin_ Raeburn's friend from Québec! How's that possible?!"

"Sǔ, do the Neuwied Test," Qiū ordered. "We can start using that to draw up a comparison chart."

"Right."

Another diagnostic test was done, recording Christine Schultze's Neuwied score at 451 points, which Lisa recorded on her dataPADD. "But how on Earth is that possible?!" Regina then demanded. "We're good, but how could our power boost up like THAT?!"

"Probably the meson in your new bodies' bloodstream."

People turned as Hermione Granger walked into the room, accompanied by Elizabeth Gibbon and Margareta Hecht. Christine automatically turned around and clicked her heels together, bowing her head to her leader and friend. "At ease," the Yorkshire-born leader of the Schwarze Mädchen said with a nod of her head and a smile. "Hermione here did some tests using this new system that bright fellow from Bonn developed some years ago with the rest of us. It appears we're all Class 9s to one extent or another, with Gretta and I at the Class 9L level." As both Christine and Regina gaped in shock, Elizabeth gazed on her new friend. "My Neuwied Test score is 482 points, which is just eighteen points short of Sensei's score. Gretta's is 480 points even." She gazed on Lisa. "Master Unspeakable Turpin, are these scores made public for any reason?"

"No, Brigadier Gibbon. Even if the Neuwied Test is pretty popular, whatever results are made are always treated with all levels of confidentiality." Lisa then smirked. "No matter how much the stalebloods try to make it otherwise!"

Laughter escaped the others from Britain. "I see the descendants of _die Schweine ohne Magie_ we wanted to destroy are still being collective pains in the arse," Margareta breathed out.

"Well, we're on a roll right now even if they're trying to trip us up every chance they can," Hermione noted with a grin before she sighed. "I've got some bad news."

"What?" Qiū demanded.

"Harry sent a message up to me. Raven Malfoy just confirmed that Theo Nott and a tonne of his friends — including Draco! — made an alliance with a group of daywalkers under Adam Sewell's leadership to find a way to kill off all the Avalonians using stolen magic. And yes, I'm as shocked as you are, First Sergeant, on hearing that monster is 'alive,' so to speak," Hermione said as she gave a wide-eyed Regina a knowing look.

"That's why we came up here," Kathy reported. "We got a message from Ariel Goyle about that very same thing."

"Why would they do this, _Frau_ Granger?" Christine asked.

"Because they're afraid that the Avalonians will force-transform all the Terrans into 'crystal-bloods,' thus denying them their primary source of food, Staff Sergeant," the normal-born from West Sussex reported before she smirked. "Which would violate the spirit and the letter of the Earth-Avalon Treaty of Alliance and Friendship signed in March. And that, our wonderful friends will not do under any circumstances as it would be no different than what their former masters did to them for over a century."

"Is this demented son of a bitch in jail?!" Regina immediately demanded.

"Regretfully no, First Sergeant," Hermione apologized before she giggled. "But don't worry about it. You'd think that Draco would do everything to avoid being _**touched**_ by his sister whenever he's in her presence!" she then added, which made the others from Britain laugh. "Their original targets were you and all your sisters; Sewell's friends in Germany discovered you were trapped in that cave on Nurmengardberg some weeks ago and decided they couldn't pass up such an opportunity to snare a lot of magic for their cause." As the Black Maidens amongst them all tensed on hearing that, Hermione smiled. "Pity that they never counted on the Vinur Drekar butting in like she did."

"'Vinur Drekar?'" Qiū asked.

"The Lóng de Péng'yǒu," Sǔ provided.

The older woman nodded in understanding; she didn't care for the Friend of Dragons being called simply "_**her**_" like the _Daily Prophet_ had done right from the beginning, but didn't know the Icelandic term. "What will they do now, _Frau_ Granger?" Margareta then asked. "If they're feeling so desperate to drive our new sisters off Earth, they've got to have some sort of backup plan ready to initiate at a moment's notice."

"You're right about that, Master Staff Sergeant," Hermione stated. "Their new target is Azkaban Prison. Time to strike will be Friday, most likely sometime before dawn to allow them to use their full powers since they won't be as strong when the sun's out." She sighed. "Twenty-two hundred and thirty-seven prisoners — all still with a lot of their magic available to them, even the ones who spent time at Gonebren during Death Eater Season — just sitting there and waiting to be taken. And with just a small Auror force there, it wouldn't take Sewell and his friends long to overpower then and whisk them away."

"What about the Dementors?" Elizabeth demanded.

"Wiped out of existence back in 1997 by a friend of ours when she blew the prison up with a hyper-charged mesonium bomb, Elizabeth," Lisa reported. "The goblins provided a guard force after Azkaban was reopened after the turn of the year in 1998 until our friend devised some interesting technomagic deterrents against break-outs."

"I doubt Aesup thought about stopping vampires," Sǔ mused.

"There may be a way to deal with them."

Eyes locked on Luna. "What do you mean, Luna?" Lisa asked.

"Thanks to Aesup's bomb, all of Azkaban Island is saturated with meson particles in the soil itself," the younger woman reported as her blue-grey eyes sparkled with both playful mischievousness and deadly malice. "And meson is just as deadly to ANY type of vampire as silver is."

"You mean lay a trap for them?" Regina mused as she crossed her arms. "Just like President Lincoln and the Department of Magic laid a trap for the vampire leadership who provoked the Civil War before Lee and Meade fought at Gettysburg in 1863?"

"Exactly," Luna affirmed with a nod. "All we need is to get the prisoners and the Aurors clear of the island before Mister Sewell and his friends come visit, then get Aesup to make another nice bomb to blow up once they're on the island itself."

"Um, Luna, she's out in deep space somewhere right now," Lisa reminded her.

The Devonian magical naturalist blinked before she pouted. "Oh, poo!"

_POP!_

Everyone gasped…before they looked up and gaped as a _**paper owl**_ of all things fluttered over their heads in a lazy orbit just out of people's reach even if all of them save Kathy could use wandless magic to bring it down. As the others stared in shock at such a display of power, Luna giggled with delight. "Oh, my! I was wondering when she was going to do this again!" she said as she held up a hand, palm up.

The fluttering bit of origami came over to land on the outstretched limb…before it morphed into a folded sheet of paper. With that, Luna took it in hand and opened it to gaze on what was there…before she blinked. "Where's the message?"

A line of computer-type print then appeared, relaying words in English. [**I DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT THIS TIME, LADY LUNA. I TRUST ALL IS WELL WITH YOU?**]

Luna gaped before she laughed. "Oh, my! She replicated the Speaking Paper Spell!" she declared, which made the others scramble over to gaze over her shoulders at it. "So why on Earth didn't you come here to talk to us in person?" she then asked as she gazed on the paper. "We're nowhere on Earth, so Lady Negako can't sense you."

[**AFTER I JUST RESCUED YOUR BEAUTIFUL HOSTS THIS MORNING? MUCH THAT I DO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LIFE DEBTS, I CARE NOT TO HAVE THEM SWORN TO ME, MY FRIEND.**]

"Are you the one they call the 'Vinur Drekar?'" Elizabeth asked.

[**INDEED I AM, WISE MISTRESS ELIZABETH. AS THE LADY LUNA AND HER COMPANIONS WILL BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN TO YOU, THE DEMANDS OF GIRI FORBID ME FROM REVEALING WHO I AM TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN GENERAL. I HOPE TO CORRECT THAT SOMETIME SOON, BUT I CAN'T SAY WHEN.**]

"She's a practising Zoroastrian, Brigadier," Lisa provided. "What she did was just simply an act of mercy per the tenets of her faith. And she's quite honest about this whole issue that forces her to keep quiet about her name. All the dragons and other magical creatures she's saved over the last several months verify her honesty."

The leader of the Schwarze Mädchen nodded. "Alright, fair enough. So why are you contacting us, Miss? We're beyond grateful for you saving us, but…"

[**MUCH THAT MY PERSONAL BELIEFS MAKE ME ABHOR VAMPIRES ON GENERAL PRINCIPLES, I KNOW THERE ARE MANY GOOD AND DECENT PEOPLE AMONGST THE UNDEAD REGARDLESS OF WHAT TYPE OF VAMPIRE THEY ARE. MASTER HUNTER ABRAHAM'S WONDERFUL TEACHER HENRY STURGES, FOR EXAMPLE, TO SAY THE LEAST OF THE UNDYING WARLORD OF BEAUTIFUL WALLACHIA HIMSELF. NONE THE LESS, WHAT THAT DEGENERATE MONSTER SEWELL AND HIS ALLIES PLAN TO DO CAN'T BE ALLOWED. THEY COULDN'T ACCEPT THE JUDGEMENT OF THE WISE MASTER AS DELIVERED AT THE EDGE OF MASTER ABRAHAM'S AXE DURING THE SCORE AND FOUR. SO BE IT. THEY ALL MUST BE MADE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEIR KIND WILL NO LONGER BE TOLERATED IN THE NEW SOCIETY MY BELOVED ATARU AND HIS SIBLINGS HELPED CREATE FIVE MONTHS AGONE. THAT, I CAN DO.**]

"Sister, you don't need to do that!" Kathy exclaimed. "You've already warned people about what will soon happen! Let the legal authorities deal with it!"

"We can deal with it!" Regina added. "We destroyed vampires by the cartload back in the war! Since these bastards wanted to steal our magic, we'll burn them alive!"

[**NOBLE MISTRESS REGINA, HAS YOUR BELOVED COMMANDER EVER EXPLAINED TO YOU THE CONCEPT OF THE VENGEANCE OF BLOOD? CALL UPON THAT AND THE POWER OF MAGIC ITSELF WILL DESTROY YOUR FOES WITH EASE! EVEN MORE, MAGIC WILL ****_NOT_**** CARE WHAT YOUR BIRTH-STATUS IS.**]

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Oh, Merlin! That's _**perfect**_!" Hermione purred with delight.

"What is that?" Regina asked.

"At Salem, do they painless remove your maidenhead in first year?" Qiū asked.

"Of course they do. Why?"

"Before that became common practice at our various schools, it was always possible to seize virgin witches to use their 'pure' blood for unspeakable rituals, Regina," Margareta explained. "To deter that, people discovered the power of the Vindictam Sanguinis and used it to save themselves from having their purity sullied. It's as devastating in its own way as the Praeda Bellica benediction; Magic Itself — as our delightful friend just indicated — acts as the judge, jury and executioner in this case." She then hummed. "Still, could we…"

"Not the vampires, Master Staff Sergeant."

Eyes locked on Hermione. "Who?" Lisa asked.

"Theo Nott and his friends," the normal-born from West Sussex coldly declared…

* * *

The Isle of Lundy, that moment…

"_**AH-CHOO!**_"

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) The **Vestas V90-3MW** is a three-blade upwind wind turbine generator that uses pitch control and a fifty hertz doubly fed induction generator. As noted in its name, it can produce three megawatts of rated power. The tower holding this particular type of wind turbine normally is eighty metres in height; in Germany, towers for the V90 stand 105 metres. The rotors of the V90 span ninety metres.

2) Translations: **Mugalophobic** — Adjective of **Mugalophobia**, which is a combination of _múgalos_ (literally "field mice") and _phobia_ ("mortal fear") ("Múgalos" was the term used in the Greek _Harry Potter_ translations to represent "muggles"); **Egregia cum Laude** — Literally "with outstanding honour," which is a step above **Summa cum Laude** ("with highest honour") and is applied to students who earned the same grade point average for an academic degree required for the latter honour, but did so while pursuing a more rigorous honours curriculum; **Praeda Bellica** — Spoils of War; **Ariadnian** — The demonym representing something of the independent academic city-state of **Ariadne** on Nerio; **Vindictam Sanguinis** — Vengeance of Blood; **Volksdeutsche** — Literally "racial Germans" (the term **volks** can also mean "folk" and then conveyed a meaning of superiority in both blood and civilization) this was a term used by the Nazi Party to indicate those ethnic Germans who lived in other countries (as specifically defined by Adolf Hitler in a 1938 memorandum, these were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship"); **Caudillo** — Literally translated these days as "leader," this was the title bestowed to **Francisco Franco y Bahamonde** (1892-1975) in his position as dictator of Spain from 1939 until his death (though Franco did proclaim himself as such at the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936); **Massachusite** — Traditional demonym for a native of Massachusetts (the official demonym is "**Bay Stater**"); **Tsūshō** — Crystal of Agony; **Krankenhaus** — Literally "house of suffering," this is the German title for a hospital; **Kentigernus** — The Latin name for **Saint Kentigern** (unknown date of birth, died 614), the patron saint of the city of Glasgow who is more commonly known as "Saint Mungo" (as an aside, the namesake of St. Mungo's Hospital is **Mungo Bonham**, a master healer who lived from 1560-1659 that was introduced in various Famous Wizarding Cards in the video games based on _Philosopher's Stone_, _Chamber of Secrets_, _Prisoner of Azkaban_ and _Order of the Phoenix_); **Morsmordre Avada Kedavra** — As described above, this is an application of the Killing Curse on the Dark Mark, which (as I also specluated in the _Icemaidens_ fanfics) would effectively kill the Mark's bearer; **Xiánqī** — Literally "my esteemed wife"; **Yuèzǐ** — Short for **Yuèliàng de Háizǐ** ("moon child"), a play-off on Luna Lovegood's given name; **Qiūgōng** — Short for **Qiūtiān de Gōngzhǔ** ("princess of autumn"), a play-off on the given name of Zhāng Qiū/Cho Chang; **Bundesmagieministerium** — Short for **Bundesamt für Magische Angelegenheiten** ("Federal Ministry of Magical Affairs"), the post-1949 West German (and after 1990, all-German) version of the British Ministry of Magic; **Meine Kaiserin** — Literally "My Empress"; **Lieber Gott** — Dear God; **Die Schweine ohne Magie** — Literally "the pigs without magic" (in German, calling someone a _schwein_ is one of the worst insults one can deliver).

3) _Negima_ character notes:

**Emily Sevensheep** and **Beatrix Munroe**, as noted above, became members of the **Mage Knights of Ariadne**; this happened during the "Magical World" story arc in _Negima_. Emily first appeared in the manga story "Magical Girl Yūe" (manga episode #203) while Beatrix appeared in "Magical Girl Major Battle" (manga episode #211). Their being lovers is my invention, by the way.

The actual background story of Negi Springfield's father, the **"Thousand Master" Nagi Springfield**, was never properly explained in the manga series; all that was told about him is based on a lot of biased speculation on the parts of people such as **Evangeline McDowell** and others.

4) _Harry Potter_ character notes:

**Kieran Harper** (his given name is my invention, based on the actor that would have portrayed him) is a minor character from _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ who was the reserve seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team. The scenes from the film including him were cut in the final edit.

The final fate of **Sally-Anne Perks** was never discussed in the novels. She was part of the class list that JKR devised before writing _Philosopher's Stone_ and was mentioned at the Sorting scene in that novel. However, in _Order of the Phoenix_, she was never called up to perform her OWL examinations. In both the _Icemaidens_ series and in the universe of this story, I make Sally-Anne a normal-born native of Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire north of the Forest of Dean, the daughter of a forester and a housewife, both of which are also officers in the Territorial Army. Of course, it was because of Sally-Anne's magic — as noted in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_ — that penetrated the veil set up around Rhosan Green, which is where she met her future lover **Libera Meretrice**. In the universe of this story, however, Libera was attending classes at Meridiana when Sally-Anne was invited to Hogwarts; their encounter, as noted above, occurred during the latter's OWL year there.

**Alice Tolipan** and **Luca Caruso** were both people who signed the contract that saw them become members of the **Defence Association** AKA **Dumbledore's Army** in the movie version of _Order of the Phoenix_. Their house affiliations were not noted in the movie; their being Slytherins is my invention.

5) **The Viscountcy of Dengie** (Lamicho Hundings) is named after the **Dengie Peninsula** on the North Sea coast of Essex about fifty-five kilometres east-northeast of London. Lamicho's hometown of **Bradwell** — the town's full name is **Bradwell-on-Sea** is on near the peninsula's tip, where the **River Blackwater** flows into the North Sea.

6) **Monkshood** is one of the many names applied to a genus of plants known scientifically as _Aconitum_…or normally as **Aconite**. Plants of this particular genus are also sometimes known as **Wolf's Bane**. These plants are chiefly native to the mountainous parts of the Northern Hemisphere, growing in the moisture-retentive but well-draining soils of mountain meadows. While aconite has been used in traditional Oriental medicine — which Rose Potter would have learned thanks to Yomigawa Tsukiko — these types of plants are also very poisonous.

7) Fans of Harry Turtledove's 1992 alternate history novel _The Guns of the South_ (ISBN 0-345-37675-7) will recognize the name of the magical marshal Abraham Lincoln spoke of when Harry Potter was visiting him: **Mollie Bean** (unknown dates of birth and death). In real life, Mollie disguised herself as a man and fought with the **47th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry** for two years and was wounded twice in battle; it is suspected — but not confirmed — that she was at the **Battle of Gettysburg** on 1-3 July 1863. She was captured by Union troops on 17 February 1865 and later imprisoned in **Castle Thunder** in downtown Richmond, having been declared "manifestly crazy" and was later accused as a spy. The _Richmond Whig_ later reported in its 20 February 1865 edition that other members of the 47th knew of Mollie and insinuated that she may have had sexual relations with one or more of them. Neither assertion was, however, based on any concrete evidence, Bean's own testimony or that of any other soldier in her unit. Those assertions, no doubt, influenced Harry Turtledove when he fleshed out her character as she appeared in _TGoTS_; there, she claimed she was a prostitute before disguising herself as "Melvin Bean" and joining Company "D" of the 47th (known commonly as the **Castalia Invincibles**) before Gettysburg.

8) The **Mistresses Class** at places such as the **Salem Witches Institute** is the equivalent of the NEWT Class at Hogwarts. The equivalent of those who leave Hogwarts with only their OWLs at other schools is most often called the **Graduates Class**.

9) I introduced both the **Nŏksbae** ("soul boat") and **Nŏkspotchep'um** ("soul replica") concepts in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_. Note that in the cases of Korean syllables that end in dual consonants as written in han'gŭl, only one of those syllables is normally pronounced. When it comes to the **ks** combination, the "s" is not pronounced.

10) The name of Harry Potter's would-be girlfriend from his fifth year, **Cho Chang**, was rendered in the Mandarin translations of the novels as **张秋**, read **Zhāng Qiū**. The family name literally means "archer" and is one of the most popular Chinese clan names. The given name means "autumn." However, it should be noted that Cho's English-based name (according to the Harry Potter Wikia) might have been derived from **惆怅**, which is read "**chóuchàng**" and combines the terms "distressed" and "disappointed."

11) The German rank title name of **Stabsfeldwebel** literally means "Staff Sergeant." In the German Army, this is applied to someone that is equivalent to a master warrant officer/chief petty officer 2nd class in the Canadian Forces and has the NATO rank code of OR-8. Note that the rank title Hermione Granger used for Margareta Hecht here, "Master Staff Sergeant," is a near-direct translation of the German rank name **Oberstabsfeldwebel**, which has the NATO rank code of OR-9 and is equal to a Canadian Forces chief warrant officer/chief petty officer 1st class.

12) The **Speaking Paper Spell** mentioned by Luna here is my name for a magical version of text messaging using paper. I base this concept on the practice of using holograms with letters sent between mages in _Negima_.


	4. The Maidens Receive a Royal Warrant

The Salem Witches Institute (in Salem Woods, twelve kilometres northeast of Boston), an hour before supper (London time: An hour after nightfall)…

"…he began to openly hunt those daywalkers — and yes, other types of vampires — in the wake of his being rescued from his tomb in Springfield by _Rittmeister_ von Taserich, life became very dark and ugly for many, even those such as Henry Sturges who wouldn't have ever dreamt of harming any non-vampire humanoid if it could be avoided."

A deep breath escaped the youthful-looking, raven-haired tomboyish professor with the mischievous-looking deep blue eyes, now standing by the lectern at the front of the small classroom located on the ground floor of one of the small row of townhouses at the southern end of the forest southwest of downtown Salem. Sited near the Swampscott station on the Newburyport/Rockport Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system, the Salem Witches Institute was made to appear to normals as an abandoned Federal-style row of family residences overlooking the Forest River close to Swampscott Road six hundred metres east of south from the Hawthorne Square Mall. To ensure nosey normals couldn't try to learn what this place was all about, the whole of the city was littered with ward stones that projected a variation of the Notice-Me-Not Charm that blocked people from trying to enquire further into the history of that particular neighbourhood…to say anything of stopping attempts at trying to revitalize the buildings that had served as the home of the Salem Institute since well before the Revolutionary War. To further ensure that students of America's oldest European wand-style magical school didn't attract attention when they travelled to and from Salem, they always dressed in normal clothes away from campus; to people their age, the young witches of Salem were just normal junior high and high school students attending nearby public educational institutions.

"We're close to the end of the period right now," Professor Mollie Bean then declared after taking a glance at a clock on the wall. "Questions?"

Hands went up, which made the native of Tarboro seventy kilometres east of the North Carolina state capital of Raleigh grin. She loved doing summer tutorials for prospective students of the Mistresses Class in Magical History at Salem and their male counterparts from the Seven Hills Wizarding Academy near Lynchburg in Virginia; the people preparing for the Masters Class at the latter facility always travelled to Salem — usually at their own expense! — to spend their summers learning from the person they admiringly called "Miss Mollie." Or, if they were feeling mischievous, they called her "Marse Melvin," using the alias she employed when she had been part of Company "D" (the Castalia Invincibles) of the 47th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry during the War Between the States…while performing her proper duty as a United States Deputy Marshal (Magical) hunting and eliminating those vampires who were secretly influencing the leaders of the Confederate States of America to fight for their independence. "Jennie?" she called out, pointing to one.

Jennie Seward lowered her arm. "Didn't that bother you, Miss Mollie?"

"What do you mean?"

"Fighting alongside your friends in the Castalia Invincibles while actually still holding to your oaths as a Magical Marshal?" the native of south Chicago asked as she gave her teacher a sympathetic look.

The Terran-turned-Avalonian — Mollie was the first Earth-born woman to become a bioroid thanks to a Niphentaxian admirer who lived under the Earth name "Howard O'Connor" while performing his duty for his people; he would save her life via body-swapping when a vampire tried to kill her after the 1938 reunion of Civil War veterans at Gettysburg — veteran of the War Between the States and both World Wars chuckled. Someone ALWAYS asked her _**that**_ question in the first few weeks of classes, either during summer tutorials or at the start of the fall, winter or spring terms. Shaking her head, Mollie took a deep breath before waving to herself. As the students gaped in awe at the easy show of wandless magic, her business suit morphed into the homespun grey wool uniform she had worn as "Melvin Bean" while serving in the 47th. Her arms and collars were bare of rank; Mollie had — when she was part of the United States Army Magical Corps — advanced to the permanent rank of captain and the wartime rank of brigadier general by the time she had participated in the attack on Nurmengard fighting alongside Albus Dumbledore. "It was hard for Southern magicals of all stripes when Jeff Davis and his friends formed the Confederate government in 1861. Like many Southerners, we hadn't really developed the sense of American nationalism people elsewhere possessed. Using myself as an example, I saw myself as a North Carolinian more than I saw myself as an American. Now, I had it easy; as you know, after I graduated from here in '56…" — by this, she meant 1856, not 1956 — "…I was nominated by Provost Corey to become a Magical Marshal. When you become one, you take an oath on your magic to the Constitution. It's the very same type of oath all office holders at the federal level take before they can assume their office. Because we had taken that oath, we couldn't bring ourselves to resign when Fort Sumter happened and our home states began succeeding from the Union.

"While there were many problems in the Department of Magic at the time of President Lincoln's election in 1860, there was no cause in the eyes of almost all the magical residents of the states that would eventually join the Confederacy to support the rebellion. Those that DID put on a uniform were always normal-borns who had relatives who volunteered — or were later drafted — into service. While there were feelings of sympathy to Mister Davis' government, that didn't translate into forming a provisional Confederate magical department. The rules of the ICW at the time — just as the rules of the ICMC today are concerning that type of situation — were specific when it came to forming an independent magical ministry as was shown during the Revolutionary War in reflection of what happened in normal society. If — and this was a mighty big 'if' — the Confederacy HAD won its independence, the process of forming a separate Department of Magic in Richmond would have begun. I would have been involved in that. But that didn't happen thanks very much to the discovery of who and what were pushing Mister Davis and his friends into rebellion. Yes, Saul?"

"Miss Mollie, you're the one who's credited for that discovery," Saul Thornbridge, who had been at the top of his sixth year history class at Seven Hills, noted. "How did that feel? Your friends in the Invincibles were fighting for what they believed was right…and it was being perverted behind their backs by Sewell and his allies."

"Did you have relatives who fought?" Mollie asked as she transformed her old uniform back into her business suit. "You're from Mississippi, aren't you?"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. From Biloxi."

"I first encountered Adam Sewell when he was passing through Raleigh sometime before the war began," Mollie answered. "You all learn how to sense out vampires in your defence classes, right?" As the students nodded, she shrugged. "Well, even if he seemed like your normal Southern gentleman, what he really was made him stick out to my mage senses like a lump of coal in Marse Robert's sitting room at Arlington." She paused to let her audience laugh, then she breathed out, "I reported same to my superiors, then got orders to keep track of him. Others picked up on him and his friends over the previous decades — thanks in part to good people like Mister Sturges — and a clearer picture about what Sewell and his friends were planning had taken shape by the time Mister Lincoln elected to run for President. As you all probably know, that was a slap in the face to many vampires; Mister Lincoln had been hunting them for almost four decades by then and having him become President was a threat they couldn't tolerate.

"Sometime after Second Manassas — Second Bull Run to those outside the South — I was ordered by Chief Magical Marshal Bailey to go to Salisbury Prison in North Carolina and have a platoon of Northern normal-borns who were captured at that battle released from custody and returned to their relatives; remember that even at that time, we all strictly observed the Statute of Secrecy and they didn't want to use their magic to escape and abandon their normal friends along the way." As her audience nodded in understanding, Mollie sighed. "By the time I got there, I found out a half-dozen of those normal-borns — not to mention a company's worth of normal soldiers — had been killed by vampires, their blood drained from them. I moved to send the others to safety, but was caught in the act by a man named Wayne Rowan. He was one of the older vampires living in North Carolina and one of Sewell's supporters…but like most vampires in those days, he had no idea that so many magicals also lived in America. Naturally, he attacked me once he learned I was a United States Marshal. Called me a traitor to the South and every other damned profanity in the book." She fluttered her eyelashes in a suggestive manner, which made the students laugh. "Well, a properly-raised Southern lady like me wasn't going to put up to that from no uppity Yankee carpetbagger blood-sucker, so I used the Cote Argentea to make him docile, then probed him with Legilimency." She shuddered as the memory of doing that replayed in her mind. "That was no fun at all."

As her students nodded, Mollie reached over to the lectern to take a drink of spring water from a canteen; it was one of her prized possessions from her time in the Magical Corps during the Second World War. "After I got the full story from Rowan, I destroyed him, freed the prisoners — including the normals to make it look like your normal prison break — for transfer up north, then reported same to Chief Marshal Bailey. I was ordered to disguise myself as a man and join one of the new regiments being formed for service in the Confederacy to get a better clue as to what was going on. At least a dozen other magical marshals were serving under Marse Robert when Chancellorsville was fought and Stonewall Jackson was killed." The students were all quick to sense the tone of reverence in their teacher's voice on mentioning the fond nickname bestowed to one Robert Edward Lee when he was made the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 and began pulling military miracle after military miracle out from under his hat against the Army of the Potomac. "By the time I was wounded at Gettysburg, most of the vampires who fought under Marse Robert had been targeted for elimination. While President Lincoln was dealing with Adam Sewell directly and his wife killed Sewell's sister Valdoma at the White House, my friends in grey teamed up with their counterparts in blue assigned to II Corps on Cemetery Ridge, then wiped out all the vampires in the Army of Northern Virginia during Pickett's Charge." Mollie smirked. "After Sewell and the vampires fighting with Marse Robert were destroyed, it was just a mopping up exercise to remove the rest of the vampires who were…"

A knock echoed from the doorway. People looked over to see a young African-American in the dark blue dress uniform of a soldier in the United States Army, a sealed envelope in his left hand. He had a first lieutenant's silver bars on his gold-lined light blue infantry shoulder straps, plus the usual salad bowl of medals and qualification badges on his left breast…not to mention Canadian parachute wings over his right breast above his name tag. "Captain Bean?" he asked politely as he gave her a proper West Point salute.

Mollie saluted back. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant…?"

"George Ballentine, ma'am," he said with a polite nod. "First of the Third Infantry." He then nodded politely to the students before he walked over to hand the envelope to the history professor. "From the President with his complements, ma'am."

She nodded as she took the envelope in hand. As the visitor from Washington assumed parade rest stance, she opened the envelope and drew out the paper inside. After scanning what was written there, her jaw dropped. "This confirmed?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," George replied with a polite nod. "The President stated that you can either be recalled to duty in the Army or be recalled to service as a United States Marshal or a special agent in the FBI. Choice is yours. Either way, you'll have full diplomatic immunity when you head across the pond to look in on this situation."

She gave him a curious look. "Magical or meta?"

"Meta, ma'am," he said with a nod. "Trained at General Raeburn's private school in British Columbia after I got out of Fort Benning before I was assigned to the Old Guard; that's when I got this." He indicated the jump wings over his right breast.

"Well, I can't go over there as an army captain; ICMC rules forbid it," Mollie then reported. "I'll go over as I really was during the Civil War." As his eyes widened in shock, she winked. "If you've read my file, Lieutenant, you know how old I am."

"Ma'am, I'm from Boston," George stated with a respectful voice. "My grandmother would curse me from the grave if she found out I was being impolite to a lady." He winked. "Even a white lady."

Jaws dropped, then everyone in the room laughed…

* * *

Romney Marsh (located two kilometres west of north from New Romney in Kent, twenty kilometres west-southwest of Dover), Wednesday 21 July, after dawn…

A tired sigh escaped from under the covers as a hand came up to gently push the sheets clear of Camellia Matthews' head. As the silver-haired woman groaned, a gentle _pop!_ echoed through the room to announce the arrival of her personal house elf. "Mistress, tea and breakfast is on," the tiny creature announced in a squeaky voice.

She nodded. "Thank you, Boxy."

With another _pop!_, he was gone. Grunting, she got up and stretched herself before she plodded into the bathroom to wash herself up and prepare for a new day. That took her about fifteen minutes; Camellia had always been fast in everything she did. Once she was dressed in casual normal civilians, she made her way into the living room. There, Boxy was placing a tray full of her favourite breakfast foods on the coffee table beside rolled copies of the _Daily Prophet_ and the _Saxon Sorcery Times_; the latter was the regional magical paper for the southeast of England. As she sipped her tea, the young heiress of the Matthewses of Sutton reached over to flip open the _Prophet_ and gaze on the headline there. And sure enough, it had the power of a blasting hex:

_**SCHWARZE MÄDCHEN ALIVE!**_

Camellia then sputtered in shock on reading the subtitles:

**Famous Brigade of Normal-Born Witches from Grindelwald's War Found Alive by Immortals and ****_Her_**** in Cave at Nurmengard Yesterday Morning!**

**All 4,400 of Brigadier Elizabeth Gibbon's Command now Avalonians! _Rittmeister_ Josef von Taserich Believed Responsible for Saving Heroines of the Battle of the Gates!**

**Minister of Magic Shacklebolt Announces 1950 ICMC Convention Exonerating Black Maidens "Law of the Land" in Britain! No Legal Action to be Taken!**

**_Zauberwelt_ Reports Gellert Grindelwald "Very Happy" on Learning Good News!**

**Elder Mother of Avalonians in U.K. Alicia Holmes Reports Schwarze Mädchen Recovering from Sixty-five Year Imprisonment in Cryogenic Suspension Aboard the Bioroid Factory!**

**Yomigawa Tsukiko Reports ****_She_**** Confirmed Quickening from Sacrifice of Immortal David Wisden at the Blade of the Protector of All Life during Battle of the Gates Responsible for Long Imprisonment!**

Stunned to see that wizarding Britain's main national broadsheet was putting out such inflammatory statements, Camellia sipped her tea before plunging into the articles in question. Noting that all of them had been written by Betty Braithwaite (a normal-born from the NEWT Class of 1982, alumnus of Gryffindor), Renée Amorin (a half-blood French expat who graduated from Beauxbâtons in 1978 and came to work for the _Prophet_ after the Triwizard Tournament in 1995; she was the Security Editor of the paper) and Elliott Limus (a pureblood from the NEWT class of 1985, alumnus of Hufflepuff), Camellia could only shake her head in disbelief at such a public throwing down of the gauntlet to the dark-aligned families by Harry Potter. And it was easy for her to conclude that the Man-Who-Won was ultimately behind this; his wife and Camellia's former housemate Pansy Parkinson-Black had managed to acquire a controlling share of the _Prophet_ with the help of her brother Michael after she reacquired her magic over a week before.

"Pansy, what in Merlin's name are you DOING?!" she hissed out aloud.

"Is there something wrong, Mistress?"

She looked over before smiling at Boxy, who was standing at the doorway to the kitchen. "I'm just annoyed at what I'm seeing in the paper this morning, Boxy. Don't mind me."

He nodded in understanding. "It's still good news, Mistress."

She blinked. "Why did you say that?"

"When the Undying Lord grants his favour, it is NEVER to be ignored," Boxy said. He knew his mistress' feelings concerning the Avalonians and how their presence in Britain was causing such a ruckus…but he loved his mistress very much and wanted to make sure she understood the WHOLE situation before she made the mistake of committing herself to support a war that her current "allies" wouldn't be able to win, which could possibly see her either killed or sent to Azkaban. On worse, _**That Place**_. "It is no different than if the Protector of All Life, the Earth Angel or the Friend of Dragons gives their favour to anyone, Mistress."

That comment made Camellia blink. "Why equate _**her**_ to _Rittmeister_ von Taserich, General Raeburn or Lady Negako? According to what Luna Lovegood and her father reported in the _Quibbler_, her staff is only twenty thousand years old at the most!"

Boxy shook his head. "No, Mistress Camellia! The _staff_ itself is twenty thousand years old! But the _**crystal**_ of the staff is as old as the Tears of the Stars!"

THAT made her gape in shock. The term "tears of the stars" indicated the Power Jewels, the galleon coin-sized multiple-layer crystals of mesonium on intricate necklaces scattered across the Universe by their omnipotent creators three billion years ago before they disappeared from all of Existence. As was well known, the Power Jewel placed on Earth — after spending all those eons accumulating impossible levels of life energy — had been found in 1889 by a Canadian woman named Dean Raeburn, thus becoming the planet's "jewel warrior"…or the "Protector of All Life" as mystics and magicals respectfully came to call her, especially after her incredible feats during Grindelwald's War.

And if Boxy was right — and he wouldn't lie to his mistress about something like that — and the mysterious "_**her**_" had a device with similar levels of power…!

A chill then flooded her from head to toe. While those who might do what was often called "evil" worldwide had reason to fear the Protector of All Life — after all, thanks to the Power Jewel, Raeburn literally had the power of the Gods Themselves at her very fingertips — they were often relieved to note that the quasi-immortal Ontarian and adopted British Columbian didn't want to waste time being a "superhero" or "mystery man" for the helpless fools other than those who might need rescuing from their own idiocy or ignorance. Since her retirement from active military life in 1954 to the start of July, Raeburn spent most of her time AWAY from Earth, going out in the vast Universe beyond to teach what she had learned between 1920-37 thanks to Hosan Hirosuke to eager young Jewel Warriors on other worlds who found themselves being forced into the position of becoming their home planets' own "protector of all life." And while she could be called back to active duty by the Prime Minister of Canada in case some horrid crisis came up like last year's threatened invasion by the Urusians, that had not been done…until Raeburn was somehow enticed into helping reform her old military corps; that had been done at the very same time the Protector's magical friend from Québec, Heather Thompkins, had been made the commander of the Earth Defence Force.

The Earth Defence Force…

Shaking her head, Camellia turned back her attention to the _Prophet_ to read about what might be happening with the Black Maidens and the Avalonians who had clearly accepted the deadly brigade of magical fighters amongst them as new sisters without hesitation. That overwhelming sense of family and clan the bioroids felt for each other was quite beautiful to watch…and could potentially spell disaster for those who might want to desire them harm. And while Camellia had performed the gestures and said the words when her old housemate Theodore Nott invited her to Lundy Keep to meet Adam Sewell, she wasn't as against the Avalonians as people like Draco Malfoy. Unlike that strutting peacock who always acted more like an idiot Gryffindor than a true heir of Master Salazar Slytherin, Camellia always understood what being in the Serpents' Den had been intended to ultimately teach her. She was ambitious and cunning, two things one needed to have a successful and safe life full of wealth. As the second child of a senior Wizengamot lord with a two-point seat vote — not to mention was the potential heiress of another Wizengamot lord with a one-point seat vote…even if Camellia's mother hadn't been able to actually claim the seat until last week — in that chamber, she had known all along that she could be the target of potential marriage offers the instant she came of age in the winter of 1997, though it wouldn't be as bad as what poor Achelois Runcorn ended up dealing with! Doing that — as it had been done time and time again in the past — helped cement family alliances in the Wizengamot and make the Matthewses of Sutton power brokers in the eternal game of wizarding politics in Britain.

And she _**wanted**_ that influence!

Let Charles…

_Charlie…!_

A sob suddenly surged up from her heart as her pale eyes teared. Immediately, Boxy was at her side, gently dabbing Camellia's face as he said soothing words to her and used his magic to ensure his mistress didn't spill her tea. Taking a moment to compose herself, the silver-haired apprentice ward-breaker turned to tenderly kiss her servant on the forehead, which made Boxy squeal with embarrassed delight before he vanished with a _pop!_ Once he was off doing his morning chores, she took a deep breath before she sat back in her loveseat, gazing at the ceiling of her living room.

_Why does it still hurt me so much…?!_

In a pragmatic sense, Camellia understood and accepted what had happened to Charles during Death Eater Season. He had chosen poorly and paid for that choice with his life. And while Camellia had mourned his death and railed at the fact that her father had _**banished**_ Charles from the family once Orion knew his son had taken Voldemort's mark — which effectively served him up to be chopped down by Harry Potter and a soulsword that July day near Birmingham in lieu of seeing him imprisoned at Gonebren to become a spiritual chew toy for the Hollows — and vowed to help restore wizarding Britain to a "purer" state, the practical side of her accepted her change of circumstances with ease and Camellia moved on with her life. She showed her disagreement with her father's decision concerning Charles by moving out of the house after she graduated in 1998 and began her apprenticeship training under Ulysses Cuffe — the son of the editor of the _Daily Prophet_ and the man credited with saving Romney Marsh's large population of normal-borns from the Death Eaters in 1979 thanks to creative ward use that was as deadly to Voldemort's people as employing the _Morsmordre Avada Kedavra_ — here at the small magical village overlooking the English Channel…but that didn't mean that she hated her parents. Yes, she found it hard to care for either of them these days because of Charles and wouldn't really care if they died, but she didn't wish to do as some had done in the past when they wanted to move up in the world!

She had time and she could wait it out.

Besides, committing patricide might not go as far these days as it did in the past.

Harry Potter and his allies were always on the lookout for such things…

…and amongst those allies were people like Rose Potter and Raven Malfoy.

Avalonians.

She shuddered before moving to finish her tea and eat her breakfast. Even if the truth behind people like Rose and Raven hadn't been revealed until earlier this year, it had been quite obvious all along that the ninety-seven unborn witches who had been given new life thanks to Alice Holmes in the early 1980s would cause massive waves no matter where they went. Their training at Meridiana shielded them from any tracking by the Ministry of Magic even when they were underage; the Treaty of Ynys Môn guaranteed that. The apprenticeship training several had endured under the Dark Lady of the Orient after their graduation in 1995 made people like Rose and Raven deadly human killing machines…as several Death Eaters learned to their cost at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. And their telepathy worked even better than any form of Legilimency even if it normally had to be done up close and personal.

Camellia then quaked as a memory came back to her…

* * *

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Friday 26 September 1996, after lunch… _

_A frightened cry echoed through the third floor corridor of the academic wing near the entrance of the library, making Camellia Matthews and Achelois Runcorn spin around as they scanned for potential threats. "Where did that come from?" the latter hissed. _

_"Over there," the former calmly said as she nodded towards an alcove near the entrance to the Administration Tower where the offices used by Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall were located. She then perked as hissed voices echoed from that location. "Shit!" she spat out in disgust. "One of them sounds like Charlie Vaisey! Arrogant prick!" _

_Both girls exchanged a knowing look. They hadn't exposed themselves as much as people like Draco Malfoy and his clique had done over the years. They hadn't participated in the Inquisitorial Squad the previous year, though they hadn't been stupid like Alice Tolipan and Luca Caruso were and joined the Defence Association; like many others at Hogwarts who found themselves caught in the ugly feud between Dolores Umbridge and Harry Potter, Achelois and Camellia had done a lot of private self-study to ensure they passed their defence OWL examinations with respectable marks and could advance to the pre-NEWT classes. With the Dark Lord now confirmed as having been reborn thanks to his blundering mistake at the Department of Mysteries, the politics of the Serpents' Den had become SO radicalized that everyone in the dungeons now felt themselves under a microscope, especially from seventh-years like Charlie Vaisey, who was a known blood-purist even if Camellia and Achelois hadn't confirmed if he had taken the Mark. What was worse, Voldemort was actively recruiting from the senior years at Hogwarts; many other NEWT students — Camellia's older brother, for example — were being enticed by Draco Malfoy to accept the Dark Lord's offer to join the ranks. _

_But when one put that up against the potential presence of the Dark Lady of the Orient — who had been asked by the International Conference of Magical Communities to take the Boy-Who-Lived on as her apprentice — here in Hogwarts as rumours leaking from younger members of the D.A. now stated, the irresistible force of the pureblood movement under Voldemort was going to run into an immovable wall named "Tsukuyomi." _

_The bitter lessons of the War of Liberation loudly demonstrated what getting on the wrong side of the Dark Lady of the Orient ultimately lead to. _

_And while they weren't the smartest people around — if they were, they would have been Ravenclaws — Camellia Matthews and Achelois Runcorn didn't see themselves as idiots. _

_To get caught in_ that_…! _

_"_**BACK OFF! LEAVE THAT GIRL ALONE! ****_DIOS TUKOS_****!**_" _

_Both girls croaked out on hearing that outraged scream, which was echoed with the ear-splitting sound of thunder and a cry of agony. As they watched in wide-eyed awe, a flying body being burned alive thanks to a massive bolt of electricity was tossed clear out of the alcove to smash against the opposite wall. The lightning dissipated as the target of whoever just used the Axe of the Lightning God — it was one of the most famous battle spells practised by Meridiana-trained magi; it was said to be a personal favourite of the Thousand Master himself when he engaged in combat — slumped to the floor in a dazed, burnt heap. Shouts then echoed from everywhere around the scene as someone calmly walked out of the alcove to inspect the damage she had unleashed. _

_On seeing her… _

_"Oh, Merlin! It's TRUE?!" Achelois gasped, her brown eyes wide with disbelief. _

_Camellia found herself faintly nodding in shock as they took in the full measure of one Rose Jamie Potter. Beautiful rusty-red hair that flowed in gentle waves from a well-shaped head down to the waist; given that she was currently dressed as a Shintō shrine miko, she had styled some of that hair in a hanging braid at the level of her neck. Vibrant green eyes that were now behind round-frame reading glasses; this was the clearest hint that this girl was also James Potter's daughter and Harry Potter's sister. And she clearly had magic to burn; both Achelois and Camellia had developed rudimentary mage sight in their self-study when it came to DADA…and the aura that now cloaked Rose from head to toe was almost too bright for them to gaze upon. _

_"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!" _

_Both girls spun around as footfalls from the Administration Tower announced the arrival of Minerva McGonagall. Coming out of the stairwell, the deputy headmistress paused to see Charlie Vaisey on the floor at Rose Potter's feet, the former definitely the worse for wear. Taking a moment to register that, she gazed on the reborn daughter of two of her favourite lions from the 1970s. "Magi Potter, what just happened here?" _

_Rose sighed before making a beckoning motion with her hand to someone behind her. To Camellia's and Achelois' stunned disbelief, a third year Japanese-Briton from Slytherin named Ichijō Manami came out. Face wet with tears and her body shaking in fright, she moved to hug Rose from one side. On seeing how distraught the poor girl was — not to mention noting that her clothes were dishevelled and ripped in some places — it was quite obvious to Minerva what nearly had happened. "As you can see, Professor, Miss Ichijō was accosted by this waste of magic and was in the midst of being forced to give herself to him sexually when I caught him while doing my patrol of the academic wing," Rose said before giving the now wide-eyed Manami a tender smile. "I stopped him." _

_Minerva scowled. "I see…" _

_"What's going on…?!" _

_Both Camellia and Achelois relaxed on hearing their own head of house… _

_"…L-l-Lily…?!" _

_…before both paled on hearing that croaked, stammering gasp from Severus Snape, a man who had a well-earned reputation for maintaining control over his emotions while in public regardless of what was going on around him. As they watched, a wide-eyed potions master/DADA teacher slowly approached from the direction of the north hallway that helped frame the courtyard located in the middle of the academic wing and connected to several unused classrooms that had been closed in the wake of the school's enrolment dropping over recent decades, his dark orbs fixed on the living ghost now standing beside his fellow head of house. Noting that Severus was staring in wide-eyed disbelief at Rose, Camellia and Achelois exchanged another look. The man's hatred for Harry Potter — stemming from what happened between Harry's father and Severus when they had attended Hogwarts — was a known fact to all…but only a scant few were privileged to know that such hatred stemmed from a deep crush Severus Snape once had for Lily Evans before a misspoken word destroyed a long friendship. To confront Severus now with Lily's reborn daughter…! _

_"Not exactly, Master Snape," Rose calmly stated before she gazed at Camellia and Achelois. _

_Severus looked himself before he nodded. "Miss Matthews, Miss Runcorn, take charge of Miss Ichijō," he bade before gazing down at the still-unconscious Charlie Vaisey. "What on Earth happened here? Who caused this?" _

_"He was trying to rape his housemate, Master Snape," Rose calmly announced. _

_THAT made Severus' head snap around as Camellia and Achelois both came up to stand protectively close to Manami, who was now trying to get control over herself…even if she now stared in confusion at the Boy-Who-Lived's sister. That was more than understandable, of course; thanks very much to Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter had come to long distrust all Slytherins. So the question Manami was probably asking herself was obvious:_ Why _was Harry's sister_ **protecting** _a Slytherin?! "Magi Potter was close by when the assault happened and put a stop to it," Minerva added. _

_Severus' jaw dropped. "'_Magi _Potter?!'" he sputtered before staring anew at Rose. Taking a moment to gaze upon the white kimono and red hakama trousers she was wearing, he then shook his head in disbelief; no doubt, like Camellia and Achelois, he had a very hard time accepting the existence of the "Girl-Who-Lived" that made her first appearance in wizarding Britain at the Department of Mysteries in mid-June as reported in the_ Daily Prophet_, the regional magical newspapers and magazines like the_ Quibbler_. _

_But to have the proof slammed right into his face like THIS…! _

_"Then what is she doing_ here_, Minerva?!" he demanded. "Meridiana alumni have no right to visit Hogwarts, just as Hogwarts alumni can't visit Meridiana…!" _

_"The ICMC cleared it for Magi Potter and the Lady Tsukuyomi's other students, not to mention some of Magi Potter's other peers who were apprenticed elsewhere after they graduated from Meridiana last year," Minerva calmly cut him off as she gave him a knowing look. "Since the Lady Tsukuyomi has taken Magi Potter's brother on as her apprentice, they'll be staying in the castle to make sure he doesn't fall…" _

_"_**WHAT?!**_" _

_That was Albus Dumbledore, who had just managed to stagger down from his office. As Camellia and Achelois gazed on the aged arch-mage, they were quick to note his slightly shrivelled and clearly badly infected right hand. They also noted that his blue eyes were wide with shock and outrage; no doubt, the fact that the Dark Lady of the Orient's students were practically running loose inside his school clearly was clearly news to him. As he stopped to glare at Rose, both Slytherins sixth-years were quick to see the mixture of anger, fear, delight and sadness in the older man's eyes. It was easy to conclude: No doubt, Dumbledore was quite overjoyed to know that Lily Potter's daughter had gained a new chance of life…though that was tempered by the fact that Rose had been forced to go to_ Meridiana _to learn her magic — thus effectively cutting her off from her brother's home society thanks to the Treaty of Ynys Môn — and was then apprenticed to a woman whose hatred of all things European was quite well known. _

_And to have Yomigawa Tsukiko's students HERE at Hogwarts…! _

_"Why was I not informed of this, Professor?" Albus demanded as he glared at Minerva. "If there were guests coming to the castle from Meridiana, I HAD to be informed!" _

_"So you could stop Lady Tsukuyomi and her students — especially Mister Potter's very own SISTER! — from coming here and helping Mister Potter find some way to put down Voldemort once and for all time?!" Minerva snapped, causing the Slytherins present to gasp in shock on hearing her say the Dark Lord's battle name without stuttering. _

_"Tsukiko will turn Harry into a killer, Minerva! We can't have that here!" _

_"Oh, so the Dark Dunderhead can kill all he wants and Big Brother can't kill him?!" _

_Severus gaped, his mouth opening and closing like some fish out of water on hearing Rose call Voldemort THAT. "Killing leads to darkness, Miss Potter," Albus chided as he slipped into his "caring grandfather" mode that had won over students in the past. "Do you really wish Harry to walk down that path, young lady? I wouldn't." _

_"Well, I'm afraid the half-blood bastard child born of RAPE of all things decided it would be different once that pathetic Seer you have on staff now said that prophecy before Big Brother was even born!" Rose snarled before raising her hand to cut off Albus' protest. "And stop treating the people here like they were total morons, Headmaster! They're far smarter than you think!" As the others all gaped in shock at Rose's defence of their right to know things, she added, "It was YOUR stupid 'forgive and forget' policy concerning the Dark Moron's followers back in 1981 that guaranteed that half-blood freak of magic came back last spring when poor Cedric Diggory was…!" _

_"How…DARE you…call…?!" _

_"_**MORSMORDRE CRUCIO****_!_**_" _

_A wailing scream escaped Charlie Vaisey as a bright bolt of red energy slammed into his left arm from somewhere behind Camellia. As she and Achelois moved to get Manami clear of a VERY pissed off Harry Potter, Minerva moaned with grief on realizing that the man who had attempted to rape poor Manami had clearly vowed himself to Voldemort. Before Albus could summon something to block the Cruciatus from burning Charlie's nerves to ashes through his Dark Mark, Harry lowered his arm and dissipate the magic he was using; it was only THEN that the others had noted that he hadn't used his wand to unleash the Cruciatus on the older student. As the Boy-Who-Lived stopped protectively close to his sister's side, Severus braced himself. He had the Mark himself, which made him just as vulnerable to the_ Morsmordre Crucio _or any other application of the Unforgivables on the modified protean charm burned into his arm as Charlie just proved himself to be. And given the past five years of bitter hatred between him and Harry, the latter wouldn't need much of an excuse to turn such frightful levels of power on Severus. What was worse, since the Dark Mark was a_ **magical construct** _and not a living sentient being, Harry could unleash all the hate and desire to destroy it without any recrimination… _

_…and that didn't count the fact that Harry had just done that_ wandlessly_! _

_"HARRY! How could you do that to him?!" Albus demanded. _

_"He was threatening my sister,_ Mister _Dumbledore!" Harry coldly declared, his use of the basic honorific causing Severus and the other Slytherins to gape in shock at such an open, public display of the break between the Boy-Who-Lived and the Defeater of Grindelwald. "And I don't give a damn that she was forced to go to a much BETTER school of magic because of the way she was given her life back after Riddle struck Mother down while Rose was still unborn!" _

_Camellia, Achelois and Manami all gasped on hearing that before they exchanged horrified looks. They had all read that Rose had died when Lily was killed, but they didn't know THAT! To kill or bring permanent harm to a pregnant witch — even a pregnant_ muggleborn _witch! — was seen amongst most traditionalists as the lowest of the lows as such acts naturally threatened the life and magic of of the unborn child within the mother's womb. Before any of them could comment on that fact, Harry added, "Every convention in every magical society worldwide permits the defence of family from lethal attack! It's not MY fault this_ leicheblut schweinhund _and his friends can't accept the truth behind Riddle!" he snarled as he jerked his chin with contempt towards the moaning Charlie. _

_Gasps of shock and stunned disbelief escaped all save Rose on hearing Harry say that obscene phrase. It was with good reason. The term_ leicheblut schweinhund _was a vile counter-insult to "mudblood" and its Continental translations devised by the legendary Schwarze Mädchen who had fought under Grindelwald and had sacrificed themselves to stave off an invasion from Nerio through the World-Gate at Nurmengard at the Battle of the Gates. It was a combination of one of the German language's most wounding insults with a term that implied that the target's blood had no life — and thus, by extension, no magic — within it; back during World War Two, it had often been used against people from families with a known history of inbreeding. "Mister Potter, that will be fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention with me this evening!" Albus then sternly declared. "And your sister and her friends will be made to…AWWWK!" _

_"Oh, shut up, you senile old idiot!" Rose snarled after she sent an invisible bolt of energy into the older man's right arm, driving him to his knees in agony. Watching this, both Camellia and Achelois were quick to note a faint smile cross Severus' face on seeing his other "master" brought down so easily; they knew of his being forced to serve both Dumbledore and Voldemort as a spy in both the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters…though out of both respect for the older man and simple self-preservation, they stayed quiet about it when dealing with their housemates. "Didn't what Sensei did to you in the Department of Mysteries when she destroyed the Elder Wand finally make you see that it's time you retired?!" As both Severus and Minerva gaped in shock on hearing that the infamous Deathstick their employer had won in battle against Grindelwald had been done away with by Rose's current teacher, Harry's sister added, "It's bad enough that you're stinking up this castle with that rotting arm of yours! Leave Big Brother alone…or you will answer to ME!" _

_With a powerful bubble-burst of energy, she effortlessly swatted Albus into the stairs leading to his office. As the impact knocked the older man out, Rose turned and slipped her arm around Harry's as she moved to beckon him towards the main doors of the library. Before the Potter siblings went off, Rose then gazed on Severus. "Uncle Severus, warn the idiots that took that moron's mark," she hissed at him while nodding with contempt at the barely-conscious Charlie Vaisey. "They step out of line, they_ **die**_!" She then made a squeezing motion with her left hand's thumb and index finger. "You are all THIS close to having_ **Gonebren** _reopened at the Queen's command! You want to see your charges face the_ **Hollows**_?! You realized your mistake! Please, in the name of the Heavens, make them realize theirs!" _

_As Minerva croaked in fright on hearing the name of the Maze Amongst the Rocks, the Potter siblings headed off. Severus watched them go, a contemplative look crossing his face. The younger Slytherins remained still as they watched Harry and Rose walk away before they relaxed themselves. "Miss Rose is nice, isn't she?" Manami then said as she looked up to Camellia. _

_The older student nodded. "That she is," she whispered… _

_…as she noted the look of wide-eyed_ **awe** _on Achelois' face…_

* * *

"…Rose…love me, Rose…!"

Camellia moaned on hearing that passionate voice echo from the open doorway to the other bedroom in the house she shared with her best friend. "Oh, Merlin…!" she hissed out as she got up and marched over.

Pausing at the doorway, she shook her head on seeing a nude Achelois Runcorn in the midst of what had to be a VERY saucy dream concerning one Rose Potter. The signs of the level of lust Camellia's best friend had always felt for the sister of the Man-Who-Won had always appeared whenever Achelois was reminded in any way of the gorgeous redhead who had terrorized the junior and would-be Death Eaters during the 1996-97 school year while she was helping Harry train himself to fulfil his destiny and finally dispose of Voldemort. No matter what others who had tried to woo the dual heiress of the Runcorns of Halton and the Collinses of Widnes away from finding a way to win the love of the "half-blood freak magi" — who later came to be called the "half-blood golem pretending to be human" when the truth of Rose's origins came out in February — so she could marry a more "acceptable" life-mate, Achelois' desire for Rose had never gone away. Even with her being seduced by Theo Nott and Draco Malfoy in supporting Adam Sewell's move to kill off the Avalonians, her desire to win Rose over…

"…Rose…beautiful Rose…I'll love you forever…"

_This is a mess!_ the silver-haired heiress of the Matthewses of Sutton mused…

* * *

Islington in London, 12 Grimmauld Place, that moment…

"'Morning, Aunt Rose."

"'Morning, Teddy," Rose Potter said as she gazed over her shoulder at the young metamorphmagus, who had just stepped into the kitchen. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah," Ted Lupin replied as he sat at the kitchen table. "At least Uncle Harry, Aunt Pansy, Aunt Mandy and Mum didn't keep me up last night."

"Well…"

He looked at the young apprentice healer, quickly seeing the amused look now on her face and the slight blush on her cheeks. "What did you do?" he hissed.

"I might have hit the girls with the Diliges Pupa to make them leave Big Brother alone for a night," she noted before she sighed. "It was a pretty harrowing meeting last night at the Palace."

He snickered before blinking in curiosity. "What happened?"

Rose sighed. "It appears the staleblood inbred fools that Big Brother has been fighting ever since he first went to Hogwarts aren't going to give up," she announced as she moved to make some tea. "A whole slew of them are trying to make an alliance with some daywalker vampires — supposedly lead by one that was reported to have been destroyed by President Abraham Lincoln himself during the American Civil War — to steal magic from people and find a way to kill off all the Avalonians." As Ted squawked in outrage on hearing that, the healer smirked. "Of course, Raven's brother and Ariel's brother should have been smart enough to keep their thoughts to themselves, but…"

She wiggled her fingers in emphasis, which made Ted laugh. Being raised in a "grey" household — even if many people in wizarding Britain would loudly assert that Rose's brother was truly of the "light" — meant that EVERYONE who fouled up for one reason or another got it with both barrels from the Man-Who-Won and his wives. It didn't matter what sort of philosophy one followed; if you did something that brought harm to someone — regardless of who or what that person was and regardless if it was physical harm or emotional harm — it wasn't accepted in the Potter-Black household on Grimmauld Place. Of course, most of Harry's vitriol since long before he had broken away from Albus Dumbledore's influence at the end of his fifth year had been aimed at the pureblood traditionalists who had backed Voldemort for so long…but as soon as the real extent of the late headmaster's meddling in Harry's life became known, the forces of the "light" soon found themselves also earning the Boy-Who-Lived's ire. That won him allies from the moderates in the middle, thus allowing him to build his own public support base in the wake of the Battle of Hogwarts and move to unleash long-overdue reforms to help wizarding Britain finally come into the Twenty-first Century.

It had been hard, of course. Atop the pressures of keeping a powerless pair of would-be wives safe from vicious relatives or vengeance-seekers — not to mention being forced to raise his godson practically on his own — Harry had to deal with unending attempts at trying to force wizarding Britain back to the "proper" path thanks to the surviving relatives of those who had either been killed or incarcerated at H.M.P. Gonebren during Death Eater Season. From allowing technomancy to be introduced at Hogwarts to ensuring that relations with Meridiana graduates — especially those who were blood relations as Harry was to Rose — were maintained and even enhanced, it just never seemed to stop. Even the arrival of the Avalonians back in February hadn't eased off the pressure; the traditionalists saw in the bioroid race a threat that couldn't be controlled thanks to their being _**metahumans**_ — thus beyond any realistic sort of purview of the Ministry of Magic — and possessing technology that seemed to trump any magic employed against it! Even after Harry's would-be wives, Ted's mother and Ginny Weasley had been given their magic — and effectively their _lives_! — back, the complaints just kept on coming.

_You'd think that those berks'd have something better to do with their lives than act like complete arses!_ Ted mused to himself as Rose began to prepare a ham-and-cheese omelet for the younger boy. He then shook his head. _After all, if the way most normal folks look at idiots like Malfoy and his goon-boy Goyle doesn't give them a clue…!_

"Mistress Rose!"

Rose looked over to see a wide-eyed Winky standing by the doorway to the kitchen. "Winky, I'm cooking!" the healer stated. "You know not to interrupt me when I'm cooking!"

The red-haired house elf sputtered in shock before she began to cry. "Winky is ashamed Mistress Rose is cooking!" she sobbed. "Winky is a bad elf…!"

"I'll make Big Brother _**pay**_ you more!"

Winky yelped in fright on hearing that sing-song threat from her master's sister, then wailed before she vanished with a _pop!_ Seeing that, Ted tried not to fall off his chair laughing; Rose — and yes, even Harry — had this sort of argument with Winky all the time whenever either of the Potter siblings wanted to flex their culinary skills, which clashed HARD with Winky's traditional outlook on life that mandated that kitchens were the places of house elves, not humans. And while Winky wasn't actually paid in coin, she was one of the best treated house elves in Britain; the threat of more "payment" actually meant more vacation time from her duties to the household. Which she tried to NEVER take, thinking such behaviour quite "improper."

As Ted turned back to his fruit juice, he then perked on hearing the familiar tinkling sound of a materialiser beam echo from the direction of the main entrance. "Who could that be?" Rose wondered as she looked over, her eyes narrowing…before she relaxed herself. "C'mon in, Lisa!" she called out. "Big Brother's still asleep!"

"You stopped Pansy, Mandy and Dora from going at him?" an amused Lisa Turpin asked as she came into the kitchen, walking over to kiss Ted on the forehead before sitting.

"I subjected them to the Diliges Pupa until Big Brother wakes up to unfreeze them."

The magical researcher gaped. "You unspeakably evil woman, you!" she hissed out with a look that was half-horrified and half-amused; the Diliges Pupa was one of the more effective jinxes in Rose Potter's personal grimoire of spells.

"Big Brother was tired after the meeting with the Queen last night," Harry's sister stated as she flipped the omelet onto a plate to give to Ted before moving to make some more tea. "His wives and Teddy's mum need to learn to pace themselves. Their bodies won't start properly ovulating until after the start of August; all the sex is doing is just tiring him out when he needs to stay alert and active." She then sighed. "So how are they, anyway? Do they need a healer to go up and see them?"

"There are sections of trained magical healers in each of the battalions and in the headquarters company," Lisa reported. "And there are a metric tonne of psionic healers up on the factory that could step in and help." She nodded her thanks as Rose handed her a cup of tea. "They're still in a state of shock over what happened, but they've got each other to fall onto for emotional support in the end. There'll eventually be many cases of survivor's guilt, especially after they get back to their home towns and find all their relatives either gone or very old in age. But they're closer to each other than any traditional coven of witches I've EVER heard of or met." She shook her head. "Nott's stupid to try to mess around with the Schwarze Mädchen. Neuwied Tests all put them at the mid-to-high four hundred mark range thanks to the automatic power boost becoming Avalonians gave them all." Lisa's Neuwied Test score jumped from a respectable 157 to an eye-popping 339 points after her body-swap; Rose — who had been "born" as an Avalonian in 1986 — had scored 419 points on her last test in March. "Even the most junior combat witch who graduated from school the summer before the Battle of the Gates could potentially mop the floor with any of Nott's friends — either wizard or vampire — if it came to that." A sigh escaped her. "Did Harry get the keys to Gonebren, Rose? If we're going to use the Vindictam Sanguinis…"

"It's in the attic safe now. Sealed away from Thérèse's reach."

Lisa nodded. "We have to show that we trust her, Rose."

A tired sigh responded. "We _**do**_ trust her, Lisa. But Gonebren is Master Salazar's grave site and the place where his main research laboratory was located after he left Hogwarts. The whole of the prison is supersaturated with the Slytherin family magic; it's been growing and evolving ever since it was turned into a prison. As soon as Thérèse fully awoke in her new body, she felt the power of Gonebren reach out to her. It's helping her adjust to being a woman and recover from the soulsword strikes used against her horcruxi when she was still Tom Riddle and his soul parts were scattered all over Britain, but her magic is becoming more attuned to that place every day. Sooner or later…"

The blonde magical researcher nodded. She had been a latecomer to the secret of Project V, the plan to effectively resurrect Voldemort in a way of ensuring that all he had done from the day he entered Hogwarts in 1938 to when he was effectively killed in 1997 was recorded for future posterity, especially when it came to understanding the true cost of the First Purification War and what led to it. Of course, the original plan was to NOT give the purified surviving soul fragment inside Helga Hufflepuff's cup — which was within the Lestrange family vault at Gringotts when Death Eater Season shook Britain from Land's End to John o' Groats — true life again. Even if the spirit of the being that had been born Thomas Marvolo Riddle at the end of 1926 was still alive in a sense, FOUR soulsword strikes had been used to destroy his horcruxi and his own core soul from the Battle of the Department of Mysteries — when Rose used her soulsword to burn away the horcrux buried in her brother's famous scar — and the Battle of Hogwarts…though given the subtle magical links between the various horcruxi, their power and memories would eventually coalesce in Hufflepuff's Cup when Voldemort himself was finally destroyed. The four resulting backlashes from the use of the soulsword damaged his soul fragment far more than the horcrux rituals that fractured Voldemort's living spirit over the years did; that had been confirmed when the soul had been examined by William and Fleur Weasley after Bellatrix Lestrange was coaxed into retrieving the cup shortly after her own soul-swap a week before.

However, when the Avalonians got wind of Project V, they immediately offered to give the soul fragment which had been trapped in the Cup of Hufflepuff since the murder of Hepzibah Smith in 1946 a chance at real life and not be forced to exist in some sort of mental limbo; to any of the bioroid race, that type of existence was repulsive. At first hesitant on the idea of giving Voldemort the chance to have his life back, Harry and those who were in on the project gave their nod to it, hoping that the magic governing Life Debts would come to their aid if necessary. With that, a body that was loosely based on Tom Riddle's late mother Merope Gaunt — though with all the genetic defects stemming from generations of inbreeding expunged from the DNA itself, then mixed with a freshly-created DNA constructed from a mixture based on scans done of the remains within Salazar Slytherin's grave at Gonebren and the grave of Tom Riddle's father in Little Hangleton — to create a stunning beauty blessed with sunflower blonde hair, eyes the shade of a clear sky and Mediterranean-tanned skin, an eye-popping combination that would turn heads no matter where she went. To add to it, the special genetic modifications that were designed for the replacement bodies of the Steel Angels as arranged by Moroboshi Negako were tossed in to give the effective spiritual "daughter" of Voldemort a much better chance at controlling the magic she would inherit from her "father."

Exit Thomas Marvolo Riddle, the Dark Lord Voldemort…

…enter Thérèse Ariana Peverell, the future Duchess of Kyme Eau.

"Why didn't it happen to Tom then?" Lisa asked.

Rose gazed at her. "What?"

"Why didn't Tom's magic chime in with Gonebren? He was Master Salazar's last true blood heir, so there should have been some sort of connect between him and Gonebren."

Harry's sister shook her head. "Tom was cursed because he was born out of an act of _**rape**_, Lisa," she said as she moved to sit down across from her friend. "Master Salazar had his standards. The idea of forcing someone to submit to a love potion would have had him spitting fire. There was no way that the Kami of Gonebren would have accepted Tom even if it really wasn't his fault that he came into the world that way." She sipped her tea. "Master Salazar was quite the elitist little prick back then."

"Rose!" Lisa gasped before she gazed on Ted.

The metamorphmagus grinned as his hair morphed colours to mark his amusement. "I've heard worse, Aunt Lisa. Aunt Pansy and Mum swear a lot worse than Aunt Rose does!"

The magical researcher moaned…

* * *

Buckingham Palace in the City of Westminster, London, an hour after breakfast…

"It's all clear, Your Majesty."

"Thank you, John. Please make sure we're not disturbed."

A deep bow was given to the Queen. "Aye, ma'am."

With that, the young Royal Navy commander stepped out of the Audience Room, located in the north wing of the main residence of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Once she was alone, the Queen then smiled before she gazed off to one corner. "I hope you don't mind keeping yourself invisible, Abraham," she stated. "I don't wish to see these poor ladies hurt. Given they effectively came here straight from the Battle of Nurmengard — even if they don't have their wands — they can be frightened quite easily."

A chuckle responded seemingly out of mid-air. "I'm long used to keeping myself invisible, Elizabeth," the cloaked Abraham Lincoln replied. As he was a former head of state — not to mention a peer of the Queen's own great-great-grandmother when he was still "alive" in the normal sense; the Great Emancipator had been ten years Queen Victoria's senior — he was permitted the right to address the British monarch by given name when they were alone or with other heads of state. Then again, given that most of Earth's heads of state were in on the secret of magic — as mandated by national laws that were written to accept the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy near the end of the Seventeenth Century — it didn't take long for people at the Queen's level to learn the truth about the man respectfully called the "Rail-Splitter" by magicals and mystics worldwide. "Can't tell you how many times I did this to mask myself from vampires after Josef was so kind to give me that power before my encounter with Mister Booth at Ford's Theatre."

She nodded. "Don't you ever get tired of it?"

A sigh responded. "Sometimes I do," he admitted. "But then I remember what happened to my mother back in Indiana. Yes, there are decent people amongst the undead. You've probably met some over the years. But the hunger for blood that lurks deep inside their hearts never goes away no matter how hard they try to control it. Sooner or later, someone loses control and surrenders to the hunger. And if people such as young Miss Summers aren't available to deal with them, then who will do it?"

She shuddered. "I rather pity that poor girl."

"Why's that?"

"Being named 'Buffy?'" She made a face. "Whatever was her mother thinking?"

A wry chuckle responded…just as the telltale ring of a materialiser echoed through the Audience Room. The Queen turned as two columns of light showered down from the ceiling, allowing a man and a woman to appear. "Christian," she said as she held her hand out for Christian Wulff, the President of Germany, to take so he could deliver a courtly kiss; the room had been augmented with Avalonian universal translator technology to allow her to speak English and be understood by all who stepped in regardless of their native language. "I trust you're having a good morning?"

"A most interesting morning indeed, ma'am," the former ministerpräsident of Lower Saxony stated before he waved his companion up. "May I present the chief administrator of the Bundesmagiemuseum in Berlin, _Verwandlungherrin_ Julia Hoffman."

"It's an honour and pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty," the middle-aged witch stated in almost accent-less English — the Queen was quick to note the synch of her words and lip movements — as she came up to give the British monarch a polite curtsey. Like her companion — who had stuck to German — she was dressed in a modern business suit with skirt, though her wand was tucked in a hidden holster wrapped around her left arm.

The Queen was also quick to sense the excitement bubbling from every point on the transfiguration mistress' body. "I don't wish to sound particularly rude, but when exactly were you born, Mistress Hoffman?" she asked with an amused grin.

A laugh responded. "I was actually born in 1949, ma'am. My father was a member of the Magische Reichsarmee and told me all sorts of wonderful tales when it came to the Schwarze Mädchen. After the war ended, he settled in Köln and became the curator of the Bundesmagiemuseum in Bonn. After I graduated from Nibelung, I began working there myself. I succeeded him when he retired just before we moved the collection to Berlin after Reunification." She then drew out her wand. "With your permission?"

"Please do."

Reaching into her jacket pocket, the director of the Bundesmagiemuseum drew out a shrunken-down chest. Placing it on the floor, she then whispered, "_Engorgio_!"

The chest exploded in size until it became equal to that of a normal work desk. "My heavens!" the Queen gasped. "You fitted the personal effects of ALL 4,400 Black Maidens into that one chest?!" She then gazed on Hoffman. "Or is it…?"

"The chest is a multiple-compartment affair that allows personal effects to be stored there using space-shrinking charms, ma'am," the visiting witch from Berlin explained. "No different than using multiple layers of the _Reducio_ charm. Trunk-makers have long been able to create these sorts of chests; it was all scientifically thought out centuries ago." She then winked. "Of course, some traditionalists…!"

"Would hex you if you ever used a word like 'science' in association with any form of magic," the Queen finished as she exchanged an amused look with President Wulff.

"It's not so bad in Germany," the German leader noted. "That's one of the several good benefits the magicals back home ultimately gained from _Herr_ Grindelwald's actions. The same is true across most of Europe. And in some places, here in Britain as well."

"Sometimes I wonder," his host breathed out…

…as a knock echoed at the doorway. "Enter!" the Queen called out.

The door opened, revealing one of her butlers. "Your Majesty, the Director of Magical Law Enforcement, the Most Honourable the Marquess of Taunton Deane and Grimmauld," he politely announced. "Accompanied by the former general officer commanding the Black Maiden Brigade of the Magical Army of the Greater German Reich, Brigadier Elizabeth Gibbon of Knottingley in West Yorkshire; and the regimental sergeant-major of the Black Maiden Brigade of the Magical Army of the Greater German Reich, Master Staff Sergeant Margareta Hecht of Gardelegen in the State of Saxony-Anhalt."

She nodded in appreciation at his excellent self-control on mentioning Harry Potter and his friends. This particular fellow was a squib; half the servant staff at Buckingham Palace were squibs or normal-borns who wished to have nothing at all to do with magical society…even now, thirteen years after Voldemort's fall. "Send them in, please," she bade.

The butler bowed before heading back out. Three people walked inside next, all in fashionable yet proper business clothes. The Queen was quick to note that the two women accompanying the Man-Who-Won looked quite uncomfortable wearing form-fitting slacks over their legs…before she remembered that Elizabeth Gibbon and Margareta Hecht were children of the Depression years of the 1920s and 1930s, when women were always expected to wear skirts. "Good morning, Your Majesty," Harry then said as he stopped before the monarch, bowing his head politely. As Elizabeth and Margareta came to attention beside him — with the latter doing the proper clicking of the heels to show her respect to the Queen — the Man-Who-Won then nodded to the two Germans present. "President Wulff. Transfiguration Mistress Hoffman. Good morning to both of you."

"Good morning, _Herr Direktor_ Potter," the President said before he smiled at the two women beside Harry. "_Frau Brigadegeneral_ Gibbon, _Frau Oberstabsfeldwebel_ Hecht. There are many people in Germany — and if I may be bold to speak for them, Austria, Italy and Spain as well — who are overjoyed to learn that all of you are alive and well, thanks to the Space Angels."

"With no offence, Mister President, it was most likely _Rittmeister_ von Taserich who saw to it we would survive trying to destroy the Nurmengard World-Gate. As you no doubt know, our new sisters weren't in control of their destinies back in 1945," Elizabeth stated with a polite smile and a bow of her head before she turned to curtsey to the Queen. "Your Majesty, good morning to you," she said as she gently took the monarch's hand in her own. "On behalf of all of us of the United Kingdom who joined Master Gellert before the Second World War began, I deeply apologize for the actions we took that cost those of your late father's subjects their lives when we carried out operations here."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Brigadier Gibbon," the Queen stated, making the native of West Yorkshire gape in stunned shock on hearing that rank title applied to her. "At the time you and your friends graduated from Hogwarts — to say anything of many of your fellow normal-born alumni who went to that school for years after that dreadful war ended — you all came to feel that you really had no place in the magical side of British society. Turning your back on wizarding Britain does not have the sigma in my eyes as those who would commit treason against the nation in the normal world would possess. I'm fully aware of how hard normal-borns and those born of magical families yet not blessed with magic had it back in those days. Many of the staff here at the Palace are either squibs or normal-borns, all of whom would sympathize with you and those who fought under your command and the command of Colonel Dietrich before you replaced her as the leader of your brigade." Her eyes then narrowed as all the magicals in the room immediately sensed their host drawing on the nigh-timeless power of the Crown to emphasize her next point, "And since there was _never_ any demand for some overwhelming loyalty oath unto Our Crown to be enforced onto Our Subjects within Our Realm like what Mister Hitler forced on you before that horrid war began, any call by anyone in Our Realm to mark you, your sister and your friends as 'traitors' to Our Realm will not be tolerated by Us. That was decided by the International Conference of Magical Communities five years after you 'died.' We will not stand for Our Father's acceptance of the rulings of that body being ignored or spat on by any of Our Subjects. If necessary, We will release a Proclamation towards that end which will drive the point home very clearly."

Elizabeth deeply bowed her head. "You are too kind to us, Your Majesty."

"You deserve it, Brigadier," the older woman said as she relaxed herself before a sympathetic look then crossed her face. "I realize — as does President Wulff and his counterparts elsewhere in Europe — that to you, it was practically yesterday when you were fighting for your lives and freedom at Nurmengard, electing to sacrifice those lives when the Nerioites turned against Master Gellert and moved to invade Earth. That act alone ultimately exonerated you from whatever 'war crimes' you might have been made to perform beforehand…even though it has long been proven that in comparison to the normal soldiers of the Wehrmacht — to say anything of those monsters in the various elements of the Schutzstaffel or other parts of the Nazi Party — your actions were always governed by a love of humanity in all its forms and a desire to simply allow those enslaved in the name of Empire to live their lives free as was guaranteed in the Statute of Secrecy in 1689. All those under your command, Brigadier Gibbon, helped see that happen. I take it you've had time to review the history of the past sixty-five years."

"We have," the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen said with a nod of her head.

"And how do you feel about that, _Frau Brigadegeneral_?" the German President asked.

"If I may be so bold as to speak for my commander, _Herr Präsident_, everything we fought for ultimately came true to one extent or another. _Ja_, even here in the United Kingdom…and I say that with no offence intended," Margareta stated with a light smile. As the others chuckled, she added, "Those magicals who are brought in from the normal world in recent years — especially after that Riddle monster was done away with in 1997 — have much better chances than we did at making good lives for themselves without having to kneel before some powerless 'lord' whose only claim to such a lordship was that he could trace pure magical ancestry back to the time of Merlin and Morganna." She shook her head. "I would like to express it a little more forcefully than that, but common politeness forbids me to say more in the presence of our most gracious host."

A startled laugh escaped the other witch in the room. "Is there something that amuses you, Mistress Hoffman?" the Queen asked the director of the Bundesmagiemuseum.

She rapidly nodded. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but after hearing Master Staff Sergeant Hecht speak like that…" She shook her head. "Father told me you had a sharp tongue and weren't afraid to use it no matter what, _Tante_ Gretta!"

Margareta blinked before her jaw dropped as she recalled what Harry had called this woman. "You're Willie's daughter?!"

The older-looking witch beamed. "_Ja_!"

"Who?" a confused Elizabeth asked.

"Willie Hoffman, Elise," the native of Saxony-Anhalt replied, using one of the German diminutive forms for "Elizabeth" when addressing her commander informally. "He was part of the _Sechste Magische Jägerbrigade_; he was an _Oberwachtzauberer_ in _Magische Jagdbataillon Einundsechzig_. They were surrounded and forced to surrender by elements of the American Magical Corps after that stupid thing in the Ardennes Forest at the end of 1944." As Elizabeth nodded in understanding, Margareta breathed out, "He was lucky."

"Why is that, Master Staff Sergeant?" the Queen wondered.

"Members of the Magische Reichsarmee who were captured by the British were always portkeyed directly into Gonebren Prison, _Eure Majestät_," Margareta replied with a polite bow of her head. "If the Americans caught them, they were portkeyed to the prisoner of war camp located in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey."

"Where the descendants of the Jersey Devil live, ma'am," Harry added.

The British monarch nodded. "Ah, yes. I assume, Mistress Hoffman, that when they were repatriated to Germany, people such as your father had a better time of it?"

"Much better, ma'am," Hoffman stated with a delighted smile.

"Why wasn't that island prison I've heard about used?" the German President asked.

"Right after the declaration of war in 1939, Mister President, a company of our group led by my predecessor, Livia Dietrich, attacked Azkaban to render it useless as a potential prisoner of war camp," Elizabeth immediately answered. "The Dementors were all incinerated by Fiendfyre while the prisoners themselves were allowed to escape to Germany. Most of them later volunteered to help the Magische Reichsarmee in a support capacity to pay off the Life Debts that resulted from that attack."

"Several of them resettled in Germany after the war," Hoffman added. "They elected to surrender themselves to the Americans rather than face Gonebren in 1945."

"So how did the Dementors return to that place if Fiendfyre was used?" the Queen asked.

"Even though all the Dementors that were in Azkaban at the time were wiped out, the Schwarze Mädchen didn't destroy the ward stone that allows the souls of dark wizards and witches to be transformed into those things, ma'am," Harry answered. "Mun Aesup did it with her meson bomb in 1997; that's the reason we haven't seen any since the Death Eaters were done away with."

"I see. Very well, then. Director Hoffman, would you please return Brigadier Gibbon's and Master Staff Sergeant Hecht's property back to them?"

"_Ja_!"

With that, the director of the Bundesmagiemuseum walked over to the chest. Opening it, she reverently reached into one compartment to draw out a pine box emblazoned with the insignia of the Deathly Hallows over the Japanese kanji **黒女**, which was read _kurome_ for "black maiden"; these boxes had been personally prepared by Yomigawa Tsukiko after the end of the War of Liberation to hold the mortal remains of her German ally's most loyal fighters, who had also spent time learning from her and her subordinates before America joined the war near the end of 1941. At the bottom of the lid, the name of the person in question had been cut into the wood in both Roman script and katakana. Julia Hoffman — who had handled the surviving artifacts for years — knew which box belonged to which person practically on sight. Taking the box she had in hand now, she came over to present it to Elizabeth with both hands, bowing her head.

"All the magicals of the Fatherland have never forgotten your service unto it during such a horrid time, _Frau Brigadegeneral_," she declared. "When you were freed of the ghastly oath that bound you to the service of that monster Hitler, you and those under your command — even those from Germany and Austria who spent time in the _Jungmädelbund_ before they were invited to the various schools to learn their magic…and yes, even those who maintained membership in the _Jungmädelbund_ or the _Bund Deutscher Mädel_ while attending school — sought to atone for things that were never really your fault to cleanse the stain of the Nazi poison from our people." As Elizabeth gently took the box in hand, the older-looking witch opened it. "You'll definitely need THIS back, of course," she then added as she reached in to draw out a beautifully-crafted wand.

The others stared at it. Harry was quickly reminded of the Elder Wand given how seemed to literally have been GROWN. "That's no Ollivander's wand," he noted.

"I snapped my original wand when I joined the Schwarze Mädchen, Mister Potter," the leader of the Black Maidens reported. "None of us who joined up from Britain wanted anything to do with anything that had been touched in any way by the Ministry of Magic; our counterparts from other countries were the same way. This wand was made by Hilda Behrens in her shop on Schwansteinstraße in Füssen." With a casual flick of the foot-long wand, she smiled as ghostly Japanese rose flowers bloomed from the tip to shower the room. As the Queen chuckled at such a cute display of magic, Elizabeth drew out her combat wand holster from the box. "It's completely hand-made," she added as Harry took the holster and moved to secure it to her left arm under her jacket sleeve. "Nerioite lily pine, thirty-one centimetres, with a core of ruby meson wrapped with the heart-string of a griffin-dragon; Tsukiko-sensei provided all the parts for Mistress Hilda to use."

Holstering her weapon, she then blinked on seeing the medals and decorations inside the box: Her Knight's Cross; the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds hanging from a Weimar Republic black-red-and-gold neck ribbon; the Long Service Award of the Magische Reichsarmee with the Nazi eagle and swastika on the dark blue ribbon replaced by an oak leaf cluster; a Wound Badge in black for injuries taken during her time in Serbia, the swastika on the helmet removed; her Magical Assault Badge in gold with the Nazi eagle and swastika on the wreath of laurel under the crossed wands taken off; the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Order of the Golden Kite from Japan, both in fourth class; and the Military Order of Savoy from Italy at the rank of Commander. "When did you have all the medals changed?" she then asked the German leader.

"In 1957; that was when the laws were passed forbidding any Nazi symbols to be shown in public," President Wulff replied. "I was told by _Herrin_ Hoffman there were no Party insignia of any sort in your barracks when all your belongings were collected."

"We burned it all after our oaths to that _**man**_ from Austria was lifted from us and we learned the truth about _die Endlösung der Judenfrage_," Margareta explained as Elizabeth examined her other belongings. "Believe me — even if I often found myself believing that 'Jews are subhuman' propaganda in the early years Hitler was leader of the country — there was no way in Heaven that I or anyone from Germany would EVER have condoned THAT!"

"When our loyalty oaths were broken, we remembered the times we witnessed atrocities of one sort or another when we were out in the field," Elizabeth added. "We spent time between V-E Day and the day Professor Dumbledore came to Nurmengard — when we weren't tracking down people like Himmler to see them either killed or captured by the Allies — copying our memories into a pensieve so it could be used as evidence at war crimes trials."

"They were recovered by _Frau Generalmajor_ Raeburn and her people after it was all over, then turned over to the judges at Nürnberg for use," Hoffman stated as Elizabeth took out her wound badge to pin it over her left breast pocket, then put her magical assault badge over the pocket itself. With a quick flick of her wand, the undress ribbons for her medals were drawn out over her pocket in a two-over-four formation.

The Queen gazed at that before she nodded. "Very nice. I look forward to seeing that on a proper uniform."

Elizabeth blushed. "Ma'am, with all due respect, I don't claim the rank…"

"You will have it," the monarch cut her off. "I take it Hermione and her friends told you what those vampires who came to Nurmengard yesterday were after?"

"Yes."

"Then you will have Our Royal Warrant to effectively AND permanently deal with those who threaten the safety of all Our Subjects regardless of what they are," the Queen then ordained as both Elizabeth and Margareta stiffened themselves to attention. "You and your entire brigade, Mistress Gibbon. That this potential threat comes from a creature that should have been destroyed at the hands of President Abraham Lincoln 147 years ago this month makes it all the more reprehensible to Us." To Harry. "Lord Potter, you and your friends will give the Black Maidens your full support to see this is done as quickly as possible with as minimal of innocent casualties as possible."

"I understand, Your Majesty," Harry said with a bow of his head.

"Any support the Bundesmagieministerium can provide is yours for the asking, _Herr Direktor_ Potter," the German President said. "And yours as well, _Frau Brigadegeneral_."

Elizabeth nodded as she took the box holding her belongings from Julia Hoffman before she gazed on the chest holding her co-workers' belongings. "Master Staff Sergeant, if you won't mind gathering our things, we best be off to Gringotts."

"Gringotts?!" the others in the room asked all as one.

"Of course," the Yorkshire-born combat witch stated. "War — to quote General Sherman — is all hell…but it also costs _money_ in the long term. I refuse to force our gracious hosts up in space to commit more of their resources to us when we can provide for ourselves. The goblins were totally neutral during World War Two, so I'm sure whatever accounts we have there are still able to be accessed and have accumulated some interest."

"_**Sixty-five**_ years of interest?! Bloody likely!" Harry stated.

"Harry!" the Queen scolded as she gave him a disapproving look.

The others in the room laughed. "And people say I'M profane?!" Margareta demanded.

"Shush, you!" Elizabeth snapped.

A mocking click of the heels in response. "_Jawohl_, _meine Generalmajorin_!"

More laughter filled the room as Elizabeth gave her subordinate a mock-serious look. After Margareta got out her own box to put her service pins and undress ribbons on her jacket — in her case, she had a Wound Badge in silver for being injured four times in battle, plus also the Army version of the Parachutist Badge, which she wore beside her Wound Badge under her undress ribbons — before she wandlessly shrunk the chest so she could slip it into her pocket, the two Schwarze Mädchen and their escort departed from the Palace to head to Diagon Alley. Once Julia Hoffman was allowed to beam back to Berlin so she could return to her beloved museum — not to mention visit her father to tell him the news about meeting her "Aunt Gretta" at last — the Queen of the United Kingdom and the President of Germany exchanged a look. "What do you think, Abraham?" the former then asked as she gazed off to where a certain former American president had hid himself.

The psionic masking screen faded away to reveal a man in funeral black. "They're upset, but not letting it govern their actions," Lincoln stated as he came up to shake Christian Wulff's hand. "It's a good sign. No doubt, Josef must have made sure they could adjust to their new bodies once the souls were transferred over."

"Why would the _Rittmeister_ do something like that, sir?" the German leader asked.

"He was always sympathetic to the normal-borns," Lincoln replied. "And speaking of which, once General Gibbon and her friends are set, I'll go over to Nurmengard to meet some old friends."

"Gellert Grindelwald?" the Queen asked.

"No, much older, Elizabeth. On _**Hosan Hirosuke**_'s scale of older."

She blinked before her eyes widened. "Oh! I see…"

* * *

Meanwhile, in a private office at a certain bank in Diagon Alley…

"Griphook…is this confirmed?"

"According to the researchers in our genealogy department, it is, War Leader. I had them look into this right away once the news came out of Nurmengard yesterday morning concerning the Black Maidens and what the Friend of Dragons discovered," Griphook stated as a shark-like grin crossed his face. On seeing his leader nod in approval at the level of forward thinking that the young account manager had demonstrated in this case, the younger goblin added, "We can confirm it with just a simple lineage blood test. If what Harry warned in his e-mail to me concerning the decision made by Queen Elizabeth last night about this potential threat to the Avalonians is true, Brigadier Gibbon and her warriors will be given a Royal Warrant to find wherever the walking carrion who defy the Sun…" — that was the normal phrase used by goblins to describe daywalker vampires — "…in the British Isles are currently based at and destroy the whole lot. I doubt the Rail-Splitter will have to do anything, though I wouldn't discount his involvement." He then sighed. "I don't have Neuwied Test numbers yet from Hermione and her friends concerning Brigadier Gibbon and her warriors, but given what normally happens when a witch undergoes a body-swap…"

Ragnok grimly nodded. "Kindly ask the brigadier when she comes here if she will submit to a blood test. And be RESPECTFUL to her when you do that, Griphook! The Nazis were pigs of the lowest form, but the military leaders of Germany back then never awarded Knight's Crosses to people who shirked from battle!" he then forcefully ordained. On seeing the younger goblin bow his head in acknowledgement, he then perked as something came to him. "Would their being of the same blood as the Space Angels mar the lineage tests?"

"No, sir," Griphook replied with a shake of his head. "As you know, lineage tests for any magical sentient is always based on one's magic and how that magic was passed down through the blood of one's ancestors. Getting a new and healthy body — even with the Avalonian psionic powers — doesn't affect one's magic even if the mesonium in the blood will automatically boost one's total magical power as we've seen many times before. It's long been proven that 'muggleborns' are — in ALL cases! — genetically related to a lost family line no matter how many generations separated the new witch or wizard from their last living magic-welding ancestor. We proved that with people like Hermione when they came to claim their family inheritances after the Death Eaters were all done away with in 1997. Not even the most idiotic stalebloods who are still in the Ministry of Magic will deny a blood lineage test from us. If they did, sir, they have equivalent tests in the Department of Mysteries that work just as good."

"And the current size of the family vault in question?" the leader of the goblins in Britain asked as he gazed once more on the parchment the younger account manager had given him when he came to report on the events surrounding the Schwarze Mädchen.

A happy grin answered him. "It would make Elizabeth and Jessica Gibbon _**very**_ special clients, War Leader. We will gain much profit from them…and not just in gold."

That made the older goblin's eyes go wide…before a roaring laugh escaped him.

_This_ would unleash the kneazle among the puffskeins for sure…!

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **MBTA** — Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (nicknamed "**The T**" for its symbol [a black "T" on a white background in a black circle]); **Marse** — Southern American slang term for "Master"; **Cote Argentea** — Coat of Silver; **Leicheblut Schweinhund** — Literally "corpse-blood pig-dog," this combines the vile German insult _schweinhund_ with a phrase akin to "lifeless blood"; **Diliges Pupa** — Literally "love doll," this is a jinx which combines the Full-Body Binding Curse with a preservation charm, yet keeps the body loose enough to allow it to be posed like a mannequin or silicon love doll (hence the name); **Bundesmagiemuseum** — Federal Museum of Magic; **Verwandlungherrin** — Literally "Transformation Mistress," this is the German title for someone like Minerva McGonagall; **Brigadegeneral** — Literally "Brigade General" (or "Brigadier General"), this is the modern German Army rank title for a person who would have been ranked _Generalmajor_ in the old Wehrmacht (NATO rank code OF-6); **Tante** — Aunt; **Sechste Magische Jägerbrigade** — Sixth Magical Light Infantry Brigade (**jäger** literally means "hunter" or "huntsman" and implies the same concept as traditional light infantry or rangers); **Oberwachtzauberer** — Literally "Senior Guard Wizard," this is the male-format rank title which is equivalent to an _Oberwachthexe_ (NATO rank code OR-7); **Magische Jagdbataillon Einundsechzig** — Magical Light Infantry Battalion 61; **Eure Majestät** — Your Majesty; **Die Endlösung der Judenfrage** — Literally "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question," the quasi-official code-name for all Nazi operations that unleashed the **Holocaust**.

As an aside, name endings like "**-in**," "**-e**" and "**-frau**" used by the Magische Reichsarmee for female magicals are not used for rank titles in the modern German Army.

2) The **3rd United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard)** (**3 IR**) is the American Army's oldest active duty regiment; it was first established as the "First American Regiment" in 1784. The regiment earned campaign credits from the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War (the Eastern Theatre), the Indian wars, the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War that followed it, the Second World War (the European Theatre), the Vietnam War and the War on Terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The regiment is divided currently into three battalions. The 1st Battalion and the 4th Battalion are both assigned to **Fort Myer** in Virginia (next to **Arlington National Cemetery**), serving as memorial affairs, ceremonies and special events units. The 2nd Battalion is currently based at **Joint Base Lewis-McChord** outside Tacoma in Washington, where it serves as a Stryker infantry battalion assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the **2nd "Indian Head" Infantry Division** (**2 ID**), the American Army's forward-deployed formation in the Republic of Korea; 3 BCT would be deployed overseas to reinforce the rest of the division in case of increased hostilities.

3) _Harry Potter_ character notes:

The village of **Romney Marsh** and **Ulysses Cuffe** were both mentioned in _Harry Potter and the Icemaidens_.

The given names to **Renée Amorin** and **Elliott Limus** are my creation, as is their back stories. The former was mentioned in the film version of _Order of the Phoenix_. The latter was mentioned in the film version of _Prisoner of Azkaban_.

**Charlie Vaisey** (his given name is my creation, based on the name of the actor who played him in the movie) first appeared in _Half-Blood Prince_.

**Ichijō Manami** is a background character in the PlayStation 2 version of the video game for _Prisoner of Azkaban_; her name is Romanized in that game as "Manami Ichijoh," so I spelt it properly using Hepburn Romanization (and proper Oriental name order) here.

The concept of **Thérèse Ariana Peverell** was introduced in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_…though in that story, Thérèse was the sentience in the horcrux that was buried in Harry Potter's scar, not Hufflepuff's Cup.

4) Fans of _Negima_ should be familiar with the **Axe of the Lighting God** attack spell used by Rose Potter on Charlie Vaisey in the flashback scene; it was first introduced in the manga story "(Secret) Tower for Two" (manga episode #63). The full incantation (including invocation) is as follows: **Kenotêtos Astrapsatô de Temetô! Dios Tukos!** (Greek for "Come forth from the void, Oh Thunder, and cut down my enemy! Axe of Lightning God!")

5) The **Jungmädelbund** (literally "Young Girls League", short-form **JM**) was the section of the **Bund Deutscher Mädel** ("League of German Maidens," **BDM**) for girls 10-14 years of age during the Nazi era. The League was the girl's version of the **Hitlerjugend** ("Hitler Youth," **HJ**), the Nazi Party's youth wing. Membership in the HJ or the various branches of the BDM became mandatory for all German youth in 1936. Membership in the main part of the BDM was allowed for girls 14-18 years of age, though they could join the **Bund Deutscher Mädel - Werk Glaube und Schönheit** ("League of German Maidens' Faith and Beauty Society") if they were from 17 to 21 years of age.

6) The magical shopping district in the southwestern Bavarian city of **Füssen** mentioned here, **Schwansteinstraße** (literally "Swanstone Street"), was taken from a mountaintop estate house located in the village of **Hohenschwangau** three kilometres south-of-east from Füssen, **Schloss Neuschwanstein** ("New Swanstone Castle"). This particular edifice — which was constructed from 1869-92 — later served as the physical model for the **Sleeping Beauty Castle** at Disneyland Park in Anaheim outside Los Angeles. The Schloss Neuschwanstein has also served as a background scene for several movies, the most prominent being the 1968 British musical film _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_ starring Dick Van Dyke.

7) In this part of the story, I introduce the German equivalent of the **Order of Merlin**, the **Pour le Mérite Magique**. Like the Order of Merlin, the Pour le Mérite Magique is Germany's highest magical-only award, though in the combined magical-normal order of precedence, this order ranks below pure-military valour decorations like the Iron Cross and its derivatives. The name of the order itself is French and literally translates "For the Magical Merit." I based this award after a similarly-named top-ranked award of merit from the old Kingdom of Prussia, the **Pour le Mérite**, which was nicknamed the **Blauer Max** ("Blue Max"); this was the order that the famous World War One fighter ace **Manfred Albrecht ****_Freiherr_**** von Richthofen** AKA the **Red Baron** (1892-1918) was given a year before his death. Going along with the inspiration of the Blue Max, the Pour le Mérite Magique is nicknamed the **Weiß Max** ("White Max") due to its medallion, a silver-white Maltese cross bordered in black, which is slung from a neck ribbon. Unlike the Blue Max, the White Max does not bear any markings on the cross.

Like the Order of Merlin, the Pour le Mérite Magique is awarded in three classes (listed from highest to lowest, with the equivalent Order of Merlin post-nomials [as introduced in the first part of the first _Wizards and Avalonians_ story] for comparison):

**MO1** — The **Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds** (in German, _Pour le Mérite Magique mit Eichenlaub und Brillanten_) (short-form **PlMM m. EL u. Brill.**)  
**MO2** — The **Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves** (_Pour le Mérite Magique mit Eichenlaub_) (**PlMM m. EL**)  
**MO3** — The **Pour le Mérite Magique** (**PlMM**)

The reason why the Pour le Mérite Magique and its normal counterpart were given **_French_** names was that at the time of their institution in 1740, French was the leading international language of the world as well as the language of the Prussian royal court in Berlin. As the Iron Cross served as the primary award for bravery in Prussia during wartime, the Pour le Mérite Magique became the main award for magical merit in peacetime; this was why no swords were added to the Pour le Mérite Magique as they later would to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Despite the rise of German nationalism during the Nineteenth Century, the French tile of both awards were maintained.

However, after the Unification of Germany in 1871, the ribbon of the Pour le Mérite Magique was changed from the white-and-black of Prussia to the black-white-and-red of the German Empire. The ribbon's colours changed again to the black-red-and-gold of the Weimar Republic in 1918, then went to a red-and-white ribbon after 1935 to mark the change to the Nazi flag. Of course, after 1949 and the founding of the modern Federal Republic, the Weimar colours were restored to the Pour le Mérite Magique ribbon…and in 1957, when laws were enacted to ban the wearing of any Nazi symbol like the swastika, all Pour le Mérite Magiques awarded between 1935-45 were changed to match the Weimar ribbon colours.

8) The other awards and medals mentioned at the end of this part here reflect the various medals, decorations, military warfare service badges and wound badges awarded to personnel of the Wehrmacht during World War Two. The primary military warfare service badge for the Black Maidens and the other elements of the Magische Reichsarmee is the **Magical Assault Badge** (_Magische Sturmabzeichen_). Like other warfare qualification badges used at the time, the Magical Assault Badge came in three grades as follows (from descending to ascending order):

**Magical Assault Badge in Bronze** (_Magische Sturmabzeichen in Bronze_) — Awarded when someone engaged in a duel with potentially lethal spells being used a minimal of five times.  
**Magical Assault Badge in Silver** (_Magische Sturmabzeichen in Silber_) — Awarded when someone engaged in a duel with potentially lethal spells being used a minimal of ten times.  
**Magical Assault Badge in Gold** (_Magische Sturmabzeichen in Gold_) — Awarded when someone engaged in a duel with potentially lethal spells being used a minimal of fifteen times.

It should be noted that with the wonders of memory recall spells, all recordings of such incidents had to be verified using BOTH pensieves AND veritaserum before it was added to the combat tally of the wizard/witch in question in official records.

9) Also noted in this part is the **Wound Badge** (_Verwundetenabzeichen_), which serves as the German equivalent to the American **Purple Heart** medal. Like many other Wehrmacht badges, it was awarded in multiple classes:

**Wound Badge in Black** (_Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz_) — Awarded for those wounded once or twice by hostile action (including air raids) or frostbitten in the line of duty.  
**Wound Badge in Silver** (_Verwundetenabzeichen in Silber_) — Awarded for those wounded three or four times, suffered loss of a hand, foot or eye from hostile action…as well as suffered partial loss of hearing, facial disfigurement or brain damage via hostile action.  
**Wound Badge in Gold** (_Verwundetenabzeichen in Gold_) — Awarded for those wounded five or more times, suffering crippling woulds such as total blindness or severe brain damage via hostile action…not to mention "loss of manhood!"


	5. Declaration of War

The Leaky Cauldron, ninety minutes after breakfast…

"Mister Zabini. Miss Crabbe. Miss Lestrange. Mrs. Meretrice. Mrs. Perks. Good morning to you all. Here to do some business at Gringotts?"

Blaise Zabini, Charlotte Crabbe, Cassiopeia Lestrange, Libera Meretrice and her bond-mate Sally-Anne Perks all blinked on hearing that voice from behind them, then they turned to smile at the man dressed in black approach them from the public floo terminal located near the back of the charming magical pub that served as the main gateway between wizarding Britain's primary shopping district and the normal world. "Greetings and salutations, Master Severus," the eldest of the Meretrice quintuplets — who were, despite their being Avalonians having been publicly known since February, seen as truly blessed as multiple births at the same time were viewed as a special gift from the gods and goddesses of Magic Itself — said as she allowed Severus Snape to take her hand and courtly kiss it. "We'll be off soon to visit the noble masters of our family vaults within that honourable institution to ensure that all is ready before we take our oaths of office within the House of Lords Wizengamot later today," she added after he had greeted Charlotte and Cassiopeia the same way, then shook Blaise's and Sally-Anne's hands before taking up the empty seat at one end of their table.

"So what brings you here, Professor Snape?" Sally-Anne asked after Hannah Abbott had come over to take an order for a cup of coffee from Severus.

The potions master sighed. Despite his normal policy of favouritism to the Slytherins before 1997, Severus always did his best to help students from other houses — yes, even in Gryffindor — who showed potential in his chosen craft. The normal-born forester's daughter from Herefordshire had been one such person. Sally-Anne Perks had a wonderful study ethic, worked hard at everything she did, composed essays that were concise and got to the point without — as Hermione Granger often did before Raven Malfoy knocked some sense into the former's head during her sixth year — deluging the reader with unnecessary facts or a mass regurgitation of facts obtained from textbooks…and she even went so far as to develop her own theories as to why certain things happened the way they did in the potions laboratory. She would have been a potential candidate for post-NEWT mastery training in the art hadn't Dolores Umbridge — out of a simple hatred of all normal-borns in the end; it often amazed Severus the former senior undersecretary had never been marked as a Death Eater — learned of Sally-Anne's soul-bond with Libera Meretrice in the winter of 1996 and saw her banished from Hogwarts.

He then smirked as he recalled what happened AFTER that school year ended. Dolores — who had been nearly sacrificed to the centaurs by Harry Potter just before the Battle of the Department of Mysteries — had been found by a vengeful Sally-Anne, with Libera and the other reborn witches of Rhosan Green at her side, in the Forbidden Forest, then subjected to a very vicious series of curses and hexes that saw the woman sent to St. Mungo's for a couple months. Before she could attempt to have the "uppity mudblood" tracked down and dealt with, the news of Tsukuyomi's presence in Britain sent the former High Inquisitor scurrying into undergarment-soiling seclusion in her family home in the London borough of Camden. Dolores wouldn't get a chance to try to get even with Sally-Anne until after Rufus Scrimgeour was killed at the end of the 1996-97 school year. Within a day of Pius Thicknesse being declared Minister for Magic, the Snatchers sent to Ross-on-Wye to locate Sally-Anne were sent back to Dolores all dead, their heads on pikes, their bodies missing…and with a note warning that "Death Eater Season" was coming.

Within hours of that gruesome act making front-page news in the morning edition of _Daily Prophet_, Dolores Umbridge would become one of the first of well over two thousand "guests" to entertain the Hollows of Gonebren _en masse_ for the first time in over fifty years.

"I came to obtain supplies at Slug and Jiggers before I engage in private research for the next month," Severus answered before he wandlessly put up a privacy bubble around them. "I take it you know what's going on with Draco and Theodore?" he quietly asked.

"We know," Blaise stated as the others nodded; none of them blinked when Severus moved to mask their conversation from eavesdroppers. "Harry's got something planned…"

A chorus of shocked gasps then echoed from the direction of the main doors leading onto Charing Cross Road, which made people's heads snap over…

…and then everyone at the table gaped on seeing the two women now standing close to the entrance on either side of Harry Potter as they took a moment to drink in the warm ambiance of the Leaky Cauldron. On seeing who was now accompanying the Man-Who-Won to Diagon, Severus tried not to groan. _Damn it all, Harry! Actually BRINGING the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen and her senior NCO right into the_ **Leaky Cauldron** _of all places?!_ he mentally railed, once more reminded of all the many times he vented his spleen at the reckless idiocy many who had been sorted into Gryffindor in the past demonstrated.

"Lizzie Gibbon! My God, that IS you! How are you?!"

People gaped as a grinning Tom Dodderidge came over to shake a wide-eyed Elizabeth Gibbon's hand. After a second as her brain absorbed the sight of her former schoolmate — Tom had been a Hufflepuff a year behind the Gibbon twins; he had been the star keeper on the house quidditch team at the time — now alive as an elderly and hunchbacked man, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen then laughed before she warmly embraced him. Soon enough, another old schoolmate made her presence known. "Oh, Merlin! Lizzie, you practically look like you did when you did your OWLs in '36!" Doris Crockford — she had been a year ahead of Elizabeth and Jessica as part of Slytherin; she had helped them study for their fifth year exams — called out as she came over to embrace the younger-looking woman. "Are you alright?! You weren't hurt when you went through that body-swapping thing after the _Rittmeister_ turned you into one of the Space Angels, were you?!"

Elizabeth grinned as Harry sent a knowing look towards Severus, getting a nod and a slight smile in return from the potions master in acknowledgement of the Man-Who-Won's current plan to ease people into accepting the return of Grindelwald's Black Maidens into European wizarding society. "We hardly remembered what happened, Doris," she admitted as Tom scurried off to prepare tea. "One moment, we were on the grounds of Gretta's old school finding out we were facing an _**alien invasion**_ of all things…and the next, we were in that cave sensing the Immortals close by. Then the Vinur Drekar came, she was attacked by vampires, then we got teleported to the factory!"

Hannah, who had been serving a nearby table, gasped. "Were you hurt?! Was _**she**_ hurt?!" she demanded — with the right inflections of concern and fright in her voice, Severus mused with a private smile, admiring her acting abilities — as she came over.

"The Vinur Drekar teleported us to safety at the same moment she wiped out those vampires, _meine Herrin_," Margareta Hecht answered. "They never got near us. Still, even if they did and tried to kill or turn us, they would have suffered a very TERMINAL case of mesonium poisoning that would have either destroyed them totally…"

"Or, as we've heard in the cases of Angelus and some of his demon-possessed friends, be transformed into Terran-adopted Avalonians," Elizabeth finished.

The others in the pub all nodded in understanding. "Merlin bless that girl!" Tom said as he moved to get the tea ready at the main counter. "Pity that she has to stay quiet about who she is and where she comes from. Can't understand why, though."

"She's most likely a person who had her soul transmitted here from another dimension and inserted into an Avalonian body, Tom," Severus noted after dropping the privacy screen around his table. "That's the theory the Earth Angel came up with according to the latest issue of the _Quibbler_, where Miss Lovegood covered that incident about those thirty Terran-form Avalonians the son of the would-be master to all the founding crews of the _Haida_ and _Yamato_ had under his control; the Vinur Drekar saved them, too."

"She's as pure a Zoroastrian as anyone alive today that I know of, Uncle Severus," Charlotte added as Tom went over to give the tea to the just-arrived Schwarze Mädchen. "Still, General Raeburn decreed that since the Vinur Drekar has to keep silent about her origins due to an oath sworn on giri, she's to be left alone." She shook her head. "And I don't want to be the poor fool that tries to defy _**her**_ wishes about that."

The others in the café nodded; many had heard of — or for those who had been alive during Grindelwald's War, actually _witnessed_ — how bloody vicious the Protector of All Life could be to those who defied her on _**anything**_. By then, Tom noted what was on Elizabeth's jacket. "Oh, Merlin! Is that the Pour le Mérite Magique?!" he demanded.

Doris looked before she gaped. "My God, it IS! And with Oak Leaves and Diamonds! That's the equal of a First Class Order of Merlin! How did you get that, Lizzie?!"

"Battlefield medical spells I invented while I was in Yugoslavia hunting vampires," Elizabeth stated, which made people gape. "I devised a simple way of doing a blood purge of the ichor a vampire injects into its victim to turn a human into one of them. I was able to save several hundred people from becoming demon-possessed vampires; we had no idea if there was a Slayer in the area at the time, so we had to deal with them ourselves." She pointed to her Wound Badge. "My team and I found the Hellmouth that was spewing them out in the mountains not far from Banja Luka in Bosnia. I ultimately got this because I nearly got killed dropping a fuel-air bomb into it to destroy it."

"Is that like that meson bomb Mun Aesup used to destroy Azkaban?" another man asked.

"Not as powerful as what Aesup built," Harry answered. "Fuel-air bombs usually use the same type of propellant as what powers the automobiles that go up and down Charing Cross Road…but in a vapour format mixed with air to get it burning faster. If Aesup used that type of explosive on Azkaban, it would have wrecked the prison and killed anyone inside it…but we'd still have to deal with dementors since the ward stone on the island that allowed them to be created wouldn't have been affected."

"Merlin bless her!" another man called out. "That Mun girl should have been made part of the Wizengamot for doing something like that!"

A loud cheer echoed from the other patrons in response. Indeed, it had been a day of celebration across Britain when it had been confirmed that the Dementors of Azkaban had been wiped out to the very last being and would NEVER come back. "We never thought to use mesonium in weapons, _mein Herr_," Margareta then said as she gazed on the man who had asked about the similarities between a fuel-air bomb and a mesonium bomb. "All the mesonium available in Germany at the time was being used to create more Übermenschen to be served up for the slaughter at the hands of _Frau Majorin_ Raeburn and her friends." She then shook her head. "What a pathetic and stupid waste that all was."

"_Ja_," Elizabeth breathed out in German.

Eyes locked on the silvery-blonde woman who had accompanied Britain's now-most famous expat magical warrior before Doris blinked. "You both have the same first medal," she said as she indicated the black-white-and-red undress ribbon with the diamond-encrusted oak leaves on the red field topping crossed crusader swords. "What is that?"

"The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Madame Crockford. At the time of its award, the third-highest bravery decoration of the German Reich," Severus said as he came over to join them, nodding politely to Harry.

"Isn't that like our Victoria Cross, Severus?" Tom asked.

"The very same, Tom, though awarded at multiple levels dependant if the person had been awarded a lower-ranked award before or if said person showed an uncommon level of personal valour. Almost the same as awarding bars to the Victoria Cross from subsequent awards, just like General Raeburn, Admiral Thompkins and Commissioner Larsden received," the potions master confirmed, making Elizabeth's and Margareta's eyes go wide on hearing what had happened to three of the War Hawks. "All levels of the Knight's Cross — which was, in my opinion, an unnecessary embellishment of the Iron Cross — were made to outrank the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds. The first class Iron Cross outranked the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves. The second class Iron Cross outranked the basic Pour le Mérite Magique." He nodded as he gazed on Elizabeth. "As it should always be done when it comes to awards of valour."

"You made a slight mistake there, _Zaubertränkemeister_ Snape," Margareta stated.

"How so, _Zaubertränkeherrin_ Hecht?" Severus asked.

Her eyes went wide on hearing that title applied to her. "How…?!"

A light smile crossed his face, which made people who had endured Severus' sharp tongue in class at Hogwarts gape at the sight of the normally dour man being respectful and _friendly_ to a stranger…even if said stranger was a fellow Potions Mistress; the magical translation fields of the Leaky Cauldron had no problem whatsoever in helping the English-speakers understand the German titles Severus and Margareta used for each other. "Even though you were denied the right to gain a mastery at Nurmengard before the war started, you studied under Lady Tsukuyomi when you could spare time away from the battlefield. She's an accredited Potions Mistress in her own right and saw you and several of your friends 'posthumously' accredited as same in 1950 when the ICMC cleared the slate for all you ladies. Your discovery of the use of ruby mesonium crystals in various healing potions to increase their potency is accepted practice worldwide today. That's why you yourself were awarded the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves."

She shrugged as a quirky smile crossed her face. "It was nothing, _mein Freund_. War — as _Herr General_ Stonewall Jackson eloquently said during the American Civil War — is the sum of all evils…but it's ALSO the cradle of many innovations." She then sighed. "I only wish that it didn't come with such damned cost."

"That's the only true things all who fight in a war can say."

Eyes locked on Harry. "What's that, Harry?" Sally-Anne asked.

"It doesn't matter if you win or lose, Sally-Anne. It matters that you _**survived**_ it."

People sadly nodded on hearing that…

* * *

A half-hour later, the three travellers from Buckingham Palace stepped through the portal connecting the Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley; Blaise and his companions had all gone off to Gringotts by then, accompanied by Severus. On seeing the main shopping street of wizarding Britain for the first time since before her last year at Hogwarts, Elizabeth paused before she sighed. "It's hardly changed since '37," she mused.

"There've been some changes," Harry assured her before waving over to the Technomancy Shoppe. "That was set up in recent years by a Korean-Briton friend of mine, Mun Aesup; as you'll recall, she's the one who wiped out the Dementors in '97. It's a big hit with the younger crowd as you can see," he noted on seeing the kids and teenagers crowd the plate glass windows to gaze on the incredible equipment inside. He then smiled as a pair of older witches who were heading towards the Cauldron automatically shifted themselves to stay as far clear of the Shoppe's main doors as they could…then tried to smother his amused smirk on seeing both of them pause on noting who was currently accompanying him before they turned stark-white, then they scrambled as fast as they could walk for the Cauldron. "But some things simply refuse to change."

"I don't know if that's a good thing or not," Elizabeth muttered.

"Harry!"

Harry smiled as he waved Elizabeth and Margareta with him towards Weasleys Wizard Wheezes. "'Morning, Ginny," he called out as Ginny Weasley came over to embrace him, delivering a playful peck on his lips. "How are things with you and Nell?"

"She's keeping in touch via the Dreamscape," Ginny stated. "Having fun becoming one of the 'nozzers' at _Raleigh_ while she goes through basic training." She shook her head. "I swear, some of the chief petty officers there yell ever worse than Mum!"

"'_Raleigh_?'" Elizabeth asked.

"It's a shore establishment these days down at Torpoint in Cornwall," Harry reported. "The basic training school for the Royal Navy is there. Ginny's wife is one of _Hood_'s founding crew of Terran-form Avalonians; she plans to be a medical assistant."

"We saw those ships up in orbit yesterday after we had a chance to recover from being cooped up in those gestation tubes for so long," Margareta stated as they all headed towards the shop owned by Ginny's older brothers. "Surprised a lot of us that the ship representing Germany was named _Bismarck_. I'd think that naming our ship after some of the anti-Nazi resistance groups like the Weiße Rose or honouring the people that were involved in _Unternehmen Walküre_ in 1944 would be more befitting."

"Actually, Germany's planned space aircraft carrier will be the _Walküre_," Ginny stated as she beckoned the others inside. "The space missile cruiser that the Bundeswehr will crew will be the _Weiße Rose_ and the space destroyer will be the _Widerstand_." She then chuckled as she moved behind the counter, drawing up some soda pop cans from a fridge. "Then again, what's wrong with naming Germany's battleship after Chancellor Bismarck? He's the man who literally brought Germany together in 1871, wasn't he?"

"_Ja_, he was…but it still makes me wonder why the name was accepted in the modern ship after the battleship built before the war went on _Unternehmen Rheinübung_."

"At least the sailors under _Admiral_ Lütjens and _Kapitän zur See_ Lindemann operated and fought with the same honour and courage the old German Navy showed in the Great War, Gretta," Elizabeth noted before nodding her thanks as Ginny handed her an opened can of soda pop. "It's just a damned shame that crew — and the rest of the Wehrmacht — had to fight under the overall command of such a deviant little monster like Adolf Hitler."

"_Ja_," Margareta exhaled before nodding her thanks as Ginny handed her a can of pop.

Both women then tensed on sensing a pair of people come down from the upstairs loft. Before they could snap-draw their wands, Harry placed a calming hand on Elizabeth's shoulder, which made her gaze upon him. By then, Ginny's brothers had come down, both then stopping and gaping on seeing who had come into the shop. "Oh, my Heavens!" Fred Weasley gasped before he stared in open-mouthed shock at his twin. "Forge?"

"Yeah, Gred?" George Weasley said with a knowing grin.

"You realize we have two of Master Gellert's lovely Black Maidens visiting us today?"

"Indeed, I do, dear brother. Which makes me want to ask something."

"And that is?"

"Are they all…?"

"…sexy foxes…?"

"…as both of you?!" the twins finished as one.

Margareta moaned. "Magical twins?" Elizabeth asked Ginny as she tried not to laugh.

"You get used to it," the youngest Weasley child confessed.

"Never mind," the commander of the Schwarze Mädchen breathed out. "Master Frederick, Master George, would you care to help out a group of helpless witches?"

Both men blinked. "'Helpless?!'" they exclaimed together. Calling the _**Schwarze Mädchen**_ of all the known covens of witches throughout history "helpless"…!

"Not that I'd want to embarrass your sister in public by speaking of something that should stay private, but you know what she had to do with Nell right after her body-swap and they bonded, don't you?" Harry calmly asked as he indicated Ginny.

The three Weasleys blinked…before they all paled. "Bugger…!" Fred groaned out. "You mean to say, Brigadier Gibbon, that you're going to use…?!"

"The Vindictam Sanguinis," Elizabeth coldly declared.

Ginny gasped as Fred and George exchanged looks…and then they all grinned in delight. To make THAT invocation on Magic Itself — given the Black Maidens' current state as physical virgins! — would guarantee that the vampires that had tried to kill them the previous morning at Nurmengard would be wiped clear off the map. "Merlin! That's one step away from PERFECT!" Ginny breathed out in admiration.

"But not against the vampires."

Eyes locked on Harry. "Harry, are you crazy?!" George exclaimed. "The Vengeance of Blood would be PERFECT against those monsters! And it's totally LEGAL…!"

"As it would be using it against the _**wizards**_ conspiring WITH the vampires to steal their magic as a way of killing off the Avalonians," the Man-Who-Won finished.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Malfoy?!" Fred snarled as George shuddered with outrage and Ginny paled in horror.

"He's a latecomer to it," Harry stated as Elizabeth nodded in understanding. The long-simmering family feud between the Malfoys of Cumbria and the Weasleys of Ottery Saint Catchpole — which had reportedly started when the former family blocked all attempts by the first Queen Elizabeth to ennoble the latter family and give it a permanent seat in the Wizard's Council…going so far as to try to CURSE the Virgin Queen in hopes of bringing the Crown under the sway of the former clan; of course, such a curse would fail because of the magic of the Crown protecting the Queen from such "treasonous" acts — had been as active in the 1930s as it no doubt was these days. Back when the Gibbons twins had been students, Abraxas Malfoy and Septiums Weasley engaged in what many considered an out-of-control prank war…but — as Elizabeth and some of her peers later discovered — was a series of attempts to create fatal "accidents" in hopes of ending either family line to bring the feud to a close. Obviously, with descendants of both families alive and well today, Abraxas (whom Elizabeth always saw as an arrogant arse) and Septimus (a rather kind man with a wicked sense of humour who actually dated Jessica Gibbon a few times) realized that their duties to their families' futures had precedence over perpetuating something stupid like THAT. "Ditto with Goyle, Leolin, Selwyn, Mithwold and Crouch…not to mention Runcorn and Matthews. Those last two really surprised me; I always thought Loi and Melli were smarter than that. But it's Nott who's the main supporter. That's according to the memories Raven and Ariel lifted from their brothers last night."

Amused laughter filled the room from all those who had prior experience with Draco Malfoy. "You'd think Draco would know better!" Fred exclaimed. "Even if he's been doing his best to hide Raven's existence from his mother, he's known all along about Avalonian telepathy even BEFORE the bloody Liberation! What's he trying to do?!"

"He thinks that because he's a 'pureblood,' anything he does automatically has the blessings of Magic on him!" Ginny declared with a sneer that easily matched anything Severus Snape could do. "Since Raven and Ariel — not to mention me — are no more than 'golems _pretending_ to be human,' he thinks there's nothing we or any of our sisters can do which could stop him from getting ultimately what he wants."

"What did that family do to you, _Frau_ Weasley?"

She blinked on hearing Margareta's concerned question before she breathed out. "Just before my first year in '92, Lucius Malfoy — he's Draco's and Raven's father — slipped a diary once owned by Tom Riddle into my cauldron when I was here buying my supplies, Sergeant-Major Hecht. You know all about Tom and what he became, right?" At the German witch's nod, the youngest Weasley added, "Well, that diary turned out to be one of the trinkets he used to keep himself tied to the mortal plane after Harry's mother obliterated the bastard in '81. It possessed me and unleashed the monster in Master Salazar's Chamber of Secrets — a bloody _**basilisk**_ of all things! — on the students. Several normal-borns — chief amongst them Hermione Granger — were petrified by the thing before people figured out what was going on." She was quick to sense a flash of outrage burst from Elizabeth's heart on hearing that. _Merlin!_ she mentally exclaimed. _Don't tell me that 'Mione…!_ "Harry nearly died before he killed the damned thing to save my life, then used one of the basilisk's fangs to destroy the diary."

The brigade sergeant-major of the Black Maidens gaped before she stared wide-eyed at a now-blushing Man-Who-Won. "How old were you when you did this?!" she demanded.

"It was at the end of my second year," he replied.

Both Schwarze Mädchen gaped at him before they exchanged looks. "What do you think, Gretta?" Elizabeth wondered as she grinned at Margareta.

"The Wound Badge in gold for sure, Elise. Plus at least a Knight's Cross," the latter stated, which made Harry's cheeks redden even more. "Even the Grand Cross, maybe."

"A lot better than that fat _schweinhund_ Göring ever deserved!" the former spat out.

A moan escaped the German witch. "_Jawohl_, _meine Generalmajorin_!" It was because of the first Grand Cross of the 1939 series of the Iron Cross being awarded to Hermann Göring in 1940 — atop it not being an award for bravery but for "the most outstanding strategic decisions affecting the course of the war" — that the Schwarze Mädchen _**never**_ accepted the Grand Cross as having right of precedence over the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. That award, which was one step above the medal Elizabeth and Margareta had been given, had been awarded once to a Stuka dive bomber pilot from the Silesian town of Konradswaldau — today the Polish town of Grzędy — named Hans-Ulrich Rudel; that had been awarded near the end of 1944.

"So what say we plan to deal with some _leicheblut schweinhunde_?!"

The visiting Black Maidens gaped at Ginny. "Who taught you THAT?!" Elizabeth asked.

"Harry…via Tsukiko-sensei," the youngest Weasley stated as Fred and George both laughed. "We all were tossing it around in his sixth year — my OWL year — at every one of Voldemort's supporters who were in the school at the time. Idiots like Dumbledore were taking points off us left, right and centre…but we didn't stop."

"Because they bloody hell deserved it…and more," George stated before he walked over to stand close to Elizabeth. "So, Brigadier Gibbon, how may we humble shopkeepers be of assistance to you and your delightful coven this fine morning?"

"Show me what you have," the combat witch from Yorkshire purred…

* * *

Gringotts, that moment…

"So there're no objections?"

Griphook smirked. "None whatsoever, Your Lordship. Their Ladyships' family rings accepted them without question. You can take them right away to the Wizengamot chambers and allow them to swear their oaths of service right now. Come the next weekly meeting on Monday, they can sit with everyone else as full voting members."

Hearing that, Blaise breathed out. "Thank Merlin for that!" the Baron of Lewisham declared as he wiped his forehead with a hand. He had excused himself when Griphook and two assistants had brought up the family rings to be worn by the leaders of the Most Noble Houses of Crabbe of Saxmundham, Lestrange of Barnet and Meretrice of Wye from the vaults so that Charlotte, Cassiopeia and Libera could put them on and allow the magic inherited from their ancestors to acknowledge them as the true viscountesses for their jurisdictions and matriarchs of their clans. With the amendments to the Ministry Governance Act of 1705 having wiped away all legal barriers preventing Meridiana alumni from sitting in the Wizengamot, that meant that three more family seats with a six "seat point" vote spread would now be active once more. Adding that to the eighty-six active seat point votes present in the Wizengamot, that meant that the divide of votes between the "light," the "dark," and the "neutral" families would right now go 59-30-9. That meant that even without the votes of the neutral families, those who supported the reform agenda promulgated by Kingsley Shacklebolt would possess the fifty percent-plus-one majority needed to pass bills AND now have the sixty percent-plus-one majority needed to stop any filibustering in the Wizengamot.

Thinking of that, Blaise sighed with relief. The neutral families these days included the Runcorns of Halton (four points), the Ropers of Bellacourt (three points) and the Matthewses of Sutton (two points). Blaise's old housemate Achelois Runcorn stood first to inherit the former family after her father Herodotus passed away, which wouldn't really change much given the latter's heartbreak at what happened to his cousin Albert during Death Eater Season. Even more so, Achelois ALSO stood to inherit the seat for the Collinses of Widnes (four points), whose current patriarch always voted "light." Unfortunately, Achelois was too easily swayed these days by other people — especially pureblood traditionalists like Draco Malfoy and Theo Nott — to _**not**_ really think for herself and the future of her clan. The only person who could keep Achelois clear of people like Draco and Theo was her best friend, Camellia Matthews…and she had strongly made it clear since after her brother's death that would NOT support anything invented by the people who killed Charles Matthews during Death Eater Season.

_How in Merlin's name did Loi actually get sorted into Slytherin in the first place?!_ Blaise often found himself wondering when he thought of the slender woman with the rusty red-brown hair who lived these days down in Romney Marsh alongside Camellia as they apprenticed to be curse-breakers. _Melli's a real Slytherin, but Loi…?!_

The Ropers would stay pretty much neutral once the current patriarch Xavier Roper died and was replaced by his eldest daughter Lynn; she was a Hufflepuff alumnus who had been a year ahead of Blaise and his friends, not to mention the older sister of a year-mate of Blaise's who was also a badger, Jane. Unfortunately, the Matthews' seat votes would probably be seduced by the "dark side of the Force" — Blaise had been enamoured by _Star Wars_ since he first saw it; his mother Veronica always taught him the good things about normal society, especially their science fiction — once Orion died and Camellia took over. Add that to Achelois' inheritance given that she would go wherever Camellia went, the votes in the Wizengamot could eventually go 59-36-3…unless Achelois got married to a person who could be seen as an acceptable heir to her maternal grandfather Pierus Collins. If _that_ happened — Blaise doubted it since Pierus might decide that either of Achelois' younger sisters, Cassotis or Albunea, could inherit his family seat — _and_ Camellia found some way to sway Achelois' mate to the dark, the standing count in the Wizengamot would shift to 55-40-3, which would still keep bill passage in the hands of the reformists even if it took away the right to halt filibustering in its tracks by any of the lords in the meeting chambers at the Ministry of Magic. While people like Draco and Theo weren't the eloquent speakers some of their ancestors were, they WOULD use that right to filibuster whenever ANYTHING came up which they might see as a threat to their power base, no doubt in hopes of driving other lords to the point where new legislation could be dropped or amended out of a desire to shut the loudmouths up.

"There is one more family that needs to be looked at today, Blaise."

He perked on hearing Griphook's voice, then blinked. Whenever his host switched to given names, whatever was said next was meant to be kept private. "Who, Griphook?"

"The Gibbons of Craiglockhart."

THAT made Blaise gape. Helena and Marcus Gibbon were Death Eaters of the same generation as Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. They had both fought for Voldemort during the First Purification War and were part of the large group who had avoided a permanent vacation in Azkaban after 1981 thanks to claims of being under the Imperius Curse after they were caught red-handed by the Aurors. Both laid low until the Dark Lord returned in 1995, then flocked back to his ranks. Marcus had died during the Death Eaters' attack on Hogwarts near the end of June in 1997 when Albus Dumbledore had been mercy-killed by Severus Snape; he had been cut down thanks to a stray Killing Curse from Thorfinn Rowle in the wake of all of Voldemort's people having their nerves shredded thanks to a wide-area _Morsmordre Crucio_ courtesy of Rose Potter. Helena was wounded in that same fight, but was rescued by Thorfinn and pulled clear of Hogwarts before Harry Potter, the Defence Association and Tsukuyomi's students elected to turn it up a notch and go for a complete wipe-out. Finding herself the Viscountess of Craiglockhart due to Martin having neither married nor sired children, Helena moved to formalize an engagement with Thorfinn; he was a close friend to Helena's brother and deeply regretted killing him even by accident. Fortunately for future generations, their relationship didn't get far: Thorfinn was killed when Death Eater Season was declared "open" at the start of July that year, while Helena would be captured and imprisoned in Gonebren six weeks later; she was now incarcerated in Azkaban even if her mind was a near-empty shell.

Thinking of that, Blaise then blinked as he quickly locked in on where the goblin was going. "Brigadier Gibbon's from Yorkshire! Craiglockhart is near Edinburgh!"

"Yes, that's true…but remember that our ways of tracking descendants doesn't take into account a person's physical location or moving to a new location to seek out a better place to live, Blaise. To say anything of personal magical power…or LACK of which in this case." As Blaise gaped in shock, Griphook indicated a parchment on his desk. "Our genealogists have detected a possible family link through a squib brother of Helena Gibbon's great-great-great-grandfather Thaddeus," the goblin stated as he steeped his fingers before his mouth to hide the hungry shark-like grin crossing his face. "If the lineage blood test proves this link, Elizabeth and Jessica Gibbon will turn out to be Helena's second cousins three times removed. And since there are no other descendants of that line we can track anywhere who are magical…"

"The Brigadier — as the elder-born of the two — becomes the next Viscountess Gibbon of Craiglockhart," Blaise finished. "That's another two points…"

"Which brings the 'light' vote to 61 seat points out of a total of a hundred," Griphook concluded. "Which will — for a time — keep Mister Malfoy and his friends suppressed."

"I'm worried about what might happen after Pierus Collins dies."

The goblin nodded in understanding. "Master Pierus' death would be quite regrettable. He is a friend to goblins as he is to all other magical beings." A sigh then escaped him. "And yes, I can understand your concern about what could happen, especially given how close Achelois Runcorn is to Camellia Matthews." He grinned again. "But I do know of ONE possible way to weaken or break Camellia's influence on Achelois, Blaise."

"How, Griphook?! Loi and Melli are as tight as soul-mates!"

An amused grin crossed his host's face as he gazed knowingly on the Baron of Lewisham. "Funny you should mention _that_ phrase, Blaise!" Griphook noted. "You didn't hear it from me…but did you know Achelois has always had a fancy for Harry's sister?"

Blaise gaped. "Loi…and _Rose_?!"

His host winked; he had learned the human gesture years ago and always used it to make a point. "As I said…you didn't hear it from me, Chief Warlock."

The current Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot chuckled. "Hear what, Master Griphook?"

Both of them laughed…

* * *

Romney Marsh, that moment…

"**_AH-CHOO!_**"

"Bless you! Are you alright, Loi?!"

Achelois Runcorn moaned as she wiped the mucus from her nose, then nodded her thank as her best friend's house elf handed her a handkerchief. "Ah! Thanks, Boxy!" she said with a smile, which made Boxy shudder with delight; the elf loved and cared for his Mistress Loi as much as he did his Mistress Melli. "What the devil brought that out?"

"No contaminants in the air," Camellia Matthews said as she sniffed around.

Achelois nodded before she turned back to her tea. "I'll be heading over to Diagon this morning to get some potions supplies from Slug and Jiggers."

Her best friend gave her a look. "I doubt _she_ will be there, Loi!"

The dual heiress of the Runcorns and Collinses rolled her eyes. "You're not my mother, Melli," she warned before sipping her tea and turning back to the _Daily Prophet_.

She _**hated**_ it whenever Camellia tried to scold her about her deep desire for one Rose Potter. But despite the fact that all the logical arguments about NOT pursuing a relationship with the Meridiana-trained healer that so many people had made to Achelois over the years making a lot of sense deep down — which was the inner core of the Slytherin creed; without simple common sense, one couldn't be cunning…and any sort of ambition without common sense would ultimately lead to a total disaster — there was no denying this: The fiery-haired, emerald-eyed sister of the Man-Who-Won was the most beautiful person Achelois Runcorn had ever met bar none. Even the revelation that Rose was an _alien_ in body — and a _**biological android**_ at that! — back in February when her sister Avalonians had come to Earth didn't tarnish her in Achelois' eyes.

After all, atop being a magical powerhouse who had taken lessons from one of the most powerful and experienced warriors alive today — unlike many purebloods in Britain, Achelois Runcorn had long understood what Yomigawa Tsukiko had been fighting for back in the 1940s — to make her one hell of a fighter in her own right, Rose was frightfully intelligent, stubborn in a way that made her brother seem the most accepting of people, very defensive of family and friends and an innovative spellcrafter and healer willing to take risks for her patients regardless of who and what they were. Graduating from Meridiana _maxima cum laude_ among a class of very brilliant students, she eventually earned seven masteries recognized by the ICMC thanks to years of hard study under the guidance of knowledgeable people on both Earth and Nerio before electing to apprentice as a healer specializing in long-term care issues such as various forms of lycanthropy. While having not opened her own business — Rose was still in the "residency" phase of her training under the overall supervision of Master Healer Elaine Buckshire of Ariadne even if she mostly worked these days on Earth in Britain — at this time, it wouldn't be long before she was granted the coveted title "Master Healer" and be able to work on her own. With the legal blocks preventing Meridiana alumni from doing business with the Hogwarts alumni that populated most of the magical side of Britain gone, it was a foregone conclusion that Rose would probably be snapped up to become one of St. Mungo's stars; unlike most other parts of what was traditionally called "wizarding Britain," the healers working at the hospital located near Hammersmith Broadway in London didn't mind dealing with practitioners of "non-traditional" forms of magical medicine.

Besides, despite Achelois having accepted Theo Nott's invitation to meet up with Adam Sewell and her friends the previous morning, the heiress of two seats among the Seven and Ten didn't care either which way about the bioroids who had fled to Earth months ago from their destroyed home world in the Phentax three-star system. And while it hadn't been personally proven in Achelois' eyes that the Avalonians' presence on Earth would be of benefit to all Terrans in the long term, what two of them did when they rescued Rose's cousin Maggie Dursley back in March certainly hinted that the artificially-born aliens would be a massive force for good for all Britons regardless of their being magical, metahuman or normal. The Avalonians were actively seeking out new planets to settle to the galactic "west" and "south" of Earth, many of which were reported to have massive wild magical areas which would make the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts look like a postage stamp in comparison. They didn't seek to force themselves on Terrans, only helping those who wanted or needed such help; what had happened to Rose Potter and all the others saved by Alice Holmes, to say anything of people such as Angelus, Spike and Drusilla — which did set off Adam Sewell and his friends onto their current course against the bioroids — proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. And the Avalonians had brought their own magic-like technology to give to their Terran allies, which — if used correctly — would keep greedy aliens like the Oni and their allies at bay until the natives of Earth could finally assert their place in the wider Universe.

So why even act as if she was supporting Theo and his new vampire allies?

Achelois sighed as she considered that fact. Yes, it would seem as a betrayal of her deep feelings for Rose…but the eldest daughter of Herodotus Runcorn and Napaeae Collins saw herself as a true Slytherin, following the path Master Salazar set out for his students over a millennia ago. Yes, she appeared weak-willed to others — almost to the point that some people said behind her back that Achelois should have been sorted into Hufflepuff back in 1991 — when she wasn't alone or with Camellia…but if she was _truly_ as meek as some people made her, she would've fallen under the spell of some idiot suitor long before now and probably have been disinherited by her maternal grandfather along the way. _People have such short attention spans_, she often lamented to herself when she witnessed others muse about how unlike Pierus Collins she was. Even other "true" Slytherins such as Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson-Black had been fooled by Achelois Runcorn over the years.

But not Camellia…

Not her precious Melli…

Yes, Camellia had her problems; her stubborn refusal to simply accept what had happened to her brother years ago and move on with her life being the primary one. But Achelois still loved her old roommate…and would NEVER tolerate any threats made against Camellia. It had been Achelois who had warned Lisa Turpin off shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, stating that any attempt at seeking vengeance on Camellia because of Charles' involvement in the deaths of Lisa's parents would make things difficult for the half-blood native of Brechin…even if Lisa had, by then, won the sponsorship of Achelois' maternal grandparents to seek a future career in the Unspeakables. "_My grandparents won't be alive forever, Turpin_," she succinctly put it one evening shortly after the start of their seventh year after she had heard the blonde Ravenclaw vowing to friends that she wanted to take up the offer made by Camellia's mother to make a "clean sweep" of it. "_What Charlie did to your parents was wrong. He was an idiot in the end and he paid for it. Don't stain Melli with the same brush people used on her brother. If you do, I'll make your life a living hell. I'm_ **not** _above using blood politics to protect that which I care for. Make your choice and make it smart._"

And while Achelois did understand that Lisa was still grieving for her lost parents, she HAD to put her foot down to stop the Ravenclaw from escalating an already tense situation into renewed fighting. The sheer _**viciousness**_ of Death Eater Season in the summer of 1997 had left a lot of raw wounds in the hearts of many, some of which were still festering to this very day. While Achelois _could_ understand where people like Camellia Matthews, Draco Malfoy and Theo Nott were coming from in the long term, she herself had got over what had happened to her cousin Albert and elected to move on with her life. Besides, even if he was driving for hard reforms that would their native society finally into the Twenty-first Century, you had to be a total dunderhead to not see that Harry Potter and his allies were pushing those changes while still respecting all the _**good**_ things wizards and witches native to Britain had done over the years. Even Hermione Granger, a woman who seemed the most radical type of social reformer at first meeting — Achelois still enjoyed a good laugh or two when she recalled the normal-born witch's silly drive for house elf rights during their fourth year — had shown a lot of mental flexibility after the Death Eaters had been finally put down and the long process of reconstruction from both Purification Wars commenced.

Privately, Achelois suspected that Adam Sewell and his friends were heading for a big fall in the next few days. The Avalonians were fully aware of vampires and other such magical beings…and if what had happened to the Scourge of Europe and his friends were true, the bioroids really had no problems with the undead hunters of the night and would gladly help them regain mortal lives — which included the ability to bear natural offspring — if they wanted them back. If the mysterious "_**her**_" that just rescued the Schwarze Mädchen was keeping an eye on things from wherever she was based, any move on Azkaban by the daywalkers would probably result in a huge barbecue of the undead at the business end of that woman's ancient battle staff. It wouldn't take much to thoroughly sterilize the hidden prison island east of the Shetlands of any attacker. Studies done by the Unspeakables in the wake of what that lunatic Mun Aesup did to the place in 1997 revealed that Azkaban Island was supersaturated with mesonium particles that could form the base fuel for an explosion at the same scale as the Car'-bómba, the giant Soviet thermonuclear weapon detonated on Nóvaya Zemlyá back in the autumn of 1961.

All it needed was the right type of trigger.

And if what Boxy had said about that woman's battle staff was true…!

"No, I'm not your mother," Camellia's voice cut into her friend's introspection. "But I AM your best friend. I have a right to be worried about you."

Achelois blinked before she smiled at her. "I know."

"Do you think that people would support you starting a relationship with _her_ of all people?" the other woman pressed. "Never mind her being an Avalonian. You know how close she is to her brother. If you marry that woman, Potter'll be seen as pulling your strings from the shadows. There's no way people would tolerate that."

"Oh, please!" Achelois snapped. "After what that old fool Dumbledore did to Harry until Tsukiko-sensei came along?! Harry would NEVER do that to anyone, much less try to convince his SISTER to do something like that! Yes, he doesn't want to give Draco and Theo and their friends the chance to turn things back to the way they were before Voldemort was destroyed, but Harry sees himself as above that sort of petty politics! All he wants is to create a society where he'd feel safe raising his own family once he finally knocks Pansy and Mandy up! Who wouldn't want that sort of thing, especially after what we all had to live through when we were KIDS, for Merlin's sake?!" She sighed before finishing her tea. "Melli, I love you as the twin sister I always wanted! I grieved for you when you lost Charlie! But you have to finally get over him! He made a bad choice and he bloody well paid for it!" As Camellia winced on hearing that, her best friend stood up. "By the time he lost his godfather, Harry was just sick and tired of constantly taking hits for something that his _mother_ ultimately did! So he decided he wasn't going to go along with Dumbledore's stupid 'forgive and forget' path anymore. He took Tsukiko-sensei's lessons to heart and used them!"

She turned to leave…before hearing a muffled sob from the other woman in the kitchen. "Then why didn't he just send Charlie to Gonebren…?"

Achelois stopped before she gazed on a wet-faced Camellia. "It's like he confessed after the first day of our NEWT year, Melli," the former soothed as she walked over to draw her shaking friend into her arms. "That day, he just came from finding out that that a pack of Death Eaters had butchered a whole busload of elderly normals going to visit Loch Ness. It was an eye for an eye back then, Melli. The Queen demanded it and Harry — and Rose and Ron and 'Mione and Neville and Ginny and Luna and Raven and Cassi and Lotte and Ariel and Grace — had to obey. All of Charlie's friends from the Death Eaters who were there in Chalcot Wood that day never made it to Gonebren either. Besides, look at it this way: If Charlie succeeded in learning the secrets of the warding system Granddad taught your father, your parents, Phil and Lilibet would be _**dead**_. Not to mention my family, too."

Camellia shook her head. "He would have saved them…"

"But who would have saved Charlie and you from Riddle?"

That made the silver-haired girl wince. "Still…"

Achelois sighed as she warmly rubbed her best friend's cheeks. "Melli, sweetie, I'm not sure that the Avalonians and what they're bringing here are really the best thing for us Terrans. That's why I'm playing along with Theo and Drake right now. Are they strong enough to tackle someone like Adam Sewell, a man with FIVE MILLENNIA of magical experience under his belt? If they can do it, that's fine. It's no great loss. Sewell should have died at the Rail-Splitter's hand back in 1863; I can only guess how that monster managed to save his arse in the long run." She sighed. "But if the Avalonians can't put someone like Sewell down, it's best we find that out _now_ before we'd get into something we can't get out of. That's what Master Salazar would have done in that sort of case. Those bioroids — and I don't count Rose as one as she was born and raised here on Earth even if the woman who created a new body for her to pull her free of Hufflepuff's Curse was a pure-born Avalonian — represent something that's too huge for a lot of people here on Earth to take. I want to make sure of it. That's looking out for my future." She leaned down to passionately kiss Camellia on the lips, which made the other woman swoon. "You should be doing the same thing, Melli."

With that, Achelois headed out. Camellia watched her go before she hugged herself, not sensing that Boxy had come up to place a comforting hand on her shoulder…

* * *

Diagon Alley, the Rosa Lee Teabag Teashop, an hour before lunch…

"Camellia Matthews?"

Luna Lovegood nodded before sipping her tea. "That's who I saw in my dream."

"Why would you be concerned about her, Luna?" Ron Weasley asked. He had a refreshed look on his face, as did the woman seated beside him. They had got together with Neville Longbottom, Rose Potter — who had managed to get away from her sisters-in-law and Dora Lupin before they could hex her for using the Love Doll jinx on them last night to give Rose's brother a chance to have a good night's rest — and the other sisters/relatives of Ron's year-mates for a quiet cup of tea in the wake of Charlotte Crabbe and Cassiopeia Lestrange claiming their family rings and their positions in the Wizengamot at Gringotts. Which could easily turn into something far more interesting — and potentially far more dangerous! — given who was now visiting Weasley Wizard Wheezes along with Harry Potter; everyone had been alerted early that morning as to what Raven Malfoy and Ariel Goyle had discovered last night. "You remember what Matthews' brother did to Lisa Turpin's parents, don't you?! The bastard's sister never reputed that!"

"Naturally, Ronald," the daughter of the owner of the _Quibbler_ breathed out. "Charles and Camellia were very close to each other while they were growing up. He was always there for her when she needed help before she learned how to stand on her own two feet. Even if he made the wrong choice and joined up with Tom just before Lisa's parents were killed, that didn't mean that Camellia would simply STOP loving her own brother! Would you have stopped loving Ginny or any of your brothers if they made that choice?"

Ron jerked. "W-well…"

"Relax, Ron," Raven soothed as she squeezed his hand in support. "Just be happy that you didn't have to make an awful choice like that. Being part of the traditionalist families in this country forced that choice on many people." She sighed as she sat back in her chair. "If it's anyone's fault — outside Voldemort's, of course — it was Camellia's parents for coming down so hard on her brother like that for making such a stupid choice in the first place. If Aunt Diana had openly shown some compassion and pleaded to have Charles and his friends sent to Gonebren, it wouldn't be such a problem these days…even AFTER what we discovered that morning near Loch Ness."

The others winced as they recalled that bloody scene. An overturned bus whose gas tank had exploded, unleashing a fire that incinerated all the people inside — most of whom were elderly retirees enjoying a pleasant summer vacation trip to Scotland's most famous lake — without a single survivor. It looked like a simple yet awful accident caused by careless driving…hadn't the "Ministry Six" and their companions not sensed the echoes of very ugly spell work all over the area around the bus, to say anything of the sealing charms used on the windows, doors and escape hatches to prevent anyone from getting out of the burning vehicle alive. And while Charles Matthews and his companions hadn't been involved in that attack, it had happened on the very day Voldemort decided that it was long since time for all the areas of Britain that had been blocked off to his people to be unsealed to get at the mudbloods and blood traitors hiding behind those wards. It had just been simple bad luck that placed Camellia's brother and his friends — including one of the Dark Lord's inner circle, Augustus Rookwood — in the path of Harry Potter and his friends, all of whom were in a vengeful mood thanks to what they found at Loch Ness. And once it was all done, the standard elimination tactic employed by Harry and his allies when they killed Death Eaters — to have dead bodies dumped off Land's End to feed the fishes with the help of Harry's elderly house elf, Kreacher, thus forcing relatives to learn the awful news thanks to automatic will notices sent out by Gringotts — had been brought into play, unleashing a horrid psychological blow to Voldemort's forces, just as bad as what Voldemort's people themselves had unleashed during the First Purification War in the 1970s.

"Did she feel anything for Charles?" Neville Longbottom asked.

"She did," Rose reported. "Cried her eyes out when she got back home after Big Brother had Kreacher send him and his friends to Davy Jones' locker. Uncle Orion was a lot tougher about it…but he was hurt, too." She shook her head. "Once it was all over, I offered to find some mind-healers to help families get over their losses. But would the stupid dunderheads who were running things at the Ministry want that?! NO! Of course not!"

A startled laugh echoed from nearby, which made people look over to see a familiar face at one table. "Good morning, Professor," Luna greeted. "You must be happy today."

Severus Snape — who had stopped here have a quiet tea before he apparated himself back to Hogwarts and some long-overdue research projects — quickly recovered. "That might be too much of an exaggeration, Miss Lovegood. I am simply pleased that an injustice has finally been corrected and the people banished because of others' hatred of Meridiana and what it always has represented are once more back in the fold."

"Damn straight about that," Neville noted with a nod.

The potions master then gazed on Ron. "And Miss Lovegood is quite correct about how much divided loyalties ripped apart families in this country thanks to Voldemort, Mister Weasley. Miss Matthews wasn't the only one who had to mourn a loved one who made a wrong choice…or was one who made a wrong choice and suffered for it."

Ron winced as the others sitting around him nodded in grim understanding; they all knew of Severus Snape's feelings for the late Lily Potter…and how a stupid mistake he had made in their fifth year at Hogwarts had destroyed a long childhood friendship. "Why did you do it, Professor?" Neville then asked. "I mean, you're a half-blood. Same type of parentage as Tom himself had, in fact. Why join forces with him?"

A wry smile crossed the older man's face. Even if he had finally made his peace with Rose's brother in Harry's sixth year — mediated in a beautiful _cha no yu_ hosted by Yomigawa Tsukiko herself in the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts — the potions master had not publicly spoken of the reasons that made him take the Dark Mark when he was younger and far less wise to the ways of the world. None of those who had suffered torment from Severus in his potions or DADA classes before 1997 bothered him about it after the Battle of Hogwarts; only certain older members of the Order of the Phoenix knew the truth…but they respected the man who had done such dangerous work to keep silent about what drove a man like Severus Snape. As did Harry Potter and his sister…though given the sheer scale of what Rose Potter ultimately represented — Harry first met Alice Holmes during the summer after his fifth year as arranged by Rose…which forced him to stay silent out of a very understandable fear of a Niphentaxian invasion of Earth in case the existence of their "robot slaves" was publicly revealed; if such happened, the War Hawks would have _**definitely**_ been called into it, with all the ugly implications of THAT! — in the long term, Severus' secrets were actually quite miniscule in comparison.

"Because I foolishly believed at the time — not knowing the truth about Tom Riddle, of course — that Voldemort would actually be an agent for positive change in our society, Mister Longbottom," he finally said. "Brigadier Gibbon and her friends who went across the North Sea to fight for Master Gellert in the 1930s are not the first people who've sensed the deep rot our society has suffered from since the Separation Act isolated us from the wider world beyond the Leaky Cauldron. We became arrogant in our self-imposed belief that we were truly special, far above the 'muggles' that we finally drove out of our lives in 1692. Only normal-borns and those half-bloods and purebloods raised in normal society experienced both the magical and normal sides of British society, so they could sense what was happening and could deduce what could happen if something radical wasn't done. But because we held onto the feudal way of governance that ruled our lives since the Wizard's Council refused to accept the Magna Carta, there was no way for those who wanted to effect change to push for those changes peacefully."

"Revolution," Grace Longbottom breathed out.

"Indeed so," Severus stated before he indicated Rose. "Miss Potter's mother could have become the youngest Charms Mistress in history if she wasn't a normal-born. The only way she could be accepted as such at the time was AFTER she married her pureblood husband; not even Filius' influence could have helped Lily because he's part-goblin. If it was commonly known that I was a half-blood, I myself could have been blocked from obtaining my mastery in Potions; I was lucky that Horace Slughorn didn't care for blood politics and was willing to give me a chance when he saw how good I was." To Neville. "Poppy told me what you said to your parents about the type of society they were trying to save back in the 1970s when Miss Potter came with Master Healer Buckshire and Mrs. Farandole to examine Mrs. Weasley after her body-swap, Mister Longbottom. Indeed, it was a wonder to me — before I saw the truth in what Voldemort's chosen path was leading us all towards — that people were wasting their time and sacrificing their lives to save something that deserved to die out in my eyes." He sipped his tea. "I will say this: It was a fortunate thing that Lady Tsukiko and Miss Springfield were called into it finally. Albus couldn't bring himself to teach Mister Potter and all of you the hard truths about fighting a war; his own experiences fighting Master Gellert so scarred the man that he vowed never to kill again if he could avoid it."

"Don't be too hard on ol' Albus, Severus," a strange voice hailed from a corner of the room. "He knew that not everyone could do what was right instead of what was easy."

"I was wondering when you'd start talking, Uncle Dung," Rose said before sipping her tea. "What's with the invisibility charm, anyway?"

A chuckle answered her as said charm vanished, revealing a past-middle aged man with balding grey-shot ginger brown hair and brown eyes full of both wisdom and calculation. He was dressed in rather stylish civilians reflecting that he was quite wealthy…though in the eyes of normals, his current mode of dress would be seen as just too garish. "Hello, Dung," Severus breathed out. "What does bring you here?"

Mundungus Fletcher smirked. "Other than a chance to enjoy some of Rosie's lovely tea and do some business with the Friend of Dragons, not much." The magical artifact dealer — and part-time thief — smirked as he toasted his fellow Order member. "I will say this, Severus: It's so rare to see _**you**_ of all people standing on a soapbox, so I was glad to keep my mouth shut and hear you teach the young ones here a few truths."

"Wait!" Luna cut in. "You actually do BUSINESS with the Vinur Drekar?!"

"Aye," Mundungus breathed out as he crossed his arms. "Do you believe she and those friends of hers she's protecting can stay cooped up on that damned factory by the Moon every day of the week?" He nodded towards the ceiling in emphasis. "No, they all come down to Earth — usually on the weekends — to go to quiet places and spend time breathing real air and walking on real soil, not to mention taking real baths in real water instead of them sonic showers I've heard so much about." He shuddered on saying that. "Never the same place twice. They don't want to be caught by anyone who might try to send them back to whatever hellhole they came from, of course. I helped them all get some spending money — both galleons and pounds — from some 'friends' of mine who decided that ol' Dung was getting too big for his britches and needed to be put six feet under." As the younger people gaped on hearing that — yes, Mundungus Fletcher dealt with stolen items and had engaged in thievery himself, but he NEVER had done anything that would warrant something like THAT! — the native of Liverpool smirked. "Don't expect me to say anything more about them, though. I owe them — especially the Friend of Dragons — my life for saving my skin back in March. You know how it goes."

The others nodded; the laws about magical Life Debts had been set in stone for millennia. "So what does this woman do for you, Dung?" Severus asked.

The older man smiled. He couldn't blame people for being so curious about such a young and vibrant woman who did things without demanding anything in return, armed with an alien weapon that could — in some ways — equal the famous Power Jewel itself. Hell, Mundungus himself often wondered about the Friend of Dragons and the twenty other girls whose souls had been dragged into this dimension around the time of the Liberation and implanted in Avalonian bodies — that much, he had got from all of them when they explained why they were forced to use what they called the "Rōnin's Salvation" to help keep themselves from going totally stir-crazy on the bioroid factory — from something that truly was darker than anything Voldemort could ever dream of; that much, he had long concluded after looking into those girls' eyes and realizing that all of them had once stared Death right in the face in something they were NEVER prepared for. And while he didn't like breaking his word to those nice ladies — even if he was a thief at times, keeping his word to customers was often the _only_ thing that ensured Mundungus Fletcher stayed alive — he knew what sort of buttons to press in Severus Snape and the young folks who had gone totally medieval on old Tom Riddle and his friends during the summer of 1997.

"If she was a witch and went to Hogwarts, where'd she go?" he then asked.

Severus hummed. That was an understandable question; given the overwhelming influence Hogwarts had on British wand magicals, it was often the best way to draw up points of reference that would make sense. "I'd say Gryffindor," he answered. "Or most likely, Hufflepuff. The woman emphasizes the most positive traits of both houses. She serves others — her friends — with selfless dedication and uses her battle staff to protect those who can't protect themselves and she detects the threat in time."

The older man smirked. "Not Slytherin?"

The former head of Slytherin snorted. "Of course…!"

He then paused as other people's jaws dropped. "What else has she been doing?" Luna then asked as a smirk crossed her face. "Or can you tell us, Mundungus?"

"I'll say this much, lass," the magical artifact dealer stated. "That girl — if she was one of us — would have turned out to be as much a Slytherin as Harry really was deep down. Or ol' Horace himself. You think she just goes out there to save dragon clutches and kids that fall off magical stairs all the time for her good health and doing what her faith tells her to do?" He shook his head. "No! She's been making _contacts_ all over Earth and Nerio with what she's done. Earning the sympathies and the admiration of a tonne of people, no doubt to make sure that when her friends stop being scared and come out of hiding, they won't be harmed in the long term. She's been involved in things that not even your dad's friends have picked up on, Luna. When I met her in March, she was smelling of bloody _**brimstone**_! When I asked why, she said that she had a little fun dealing with magical poachers who were trying to pick on some ghost hound puppies that wandered out of the Cave of Annwn not so far from where Meridiana is."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Merlin's bloody beard!" Severus gasped as the younger people's eyes went wide, they then exchanging shocked looks. "You mean to say that she saved…?"

"Little ones that belonged to one of the _Cŵn Annwn_," Mundungus completed, a smirk crossing his face. "Aye. The bloody _**Wild Hunt**_!" He then chuckled before sipping his tea. "So tell me now, Severus: You think that lass would have made it in Slytherin?"

"I'll say she would," Ron noted as the others breathed out…

* * *

Weasleys Wizard Wheezes, that moment…

"Some of this stuff is simply brilliant, Fred. Jess will love this!"

Fred smiled. "I take it, Liz, your delightful sister is a prankster?"

Harry and George both laughed on hearing that. "She dabbled in it back in Hogwarts," Elizabeth confessed after scanning the information on the dataPADD the Weasley twins used now as their personal pranking grimoire. As the Weasley twins and the Man-Who-Won discussed matters about using WWW products in the Schwarze Mädchen's upcoming campaign, Ginny was giving Margareta a tour of the shop and its wares. "Never did anything to prod that stupid Slytherin-Gryffindor feud on, but she did go after people who loved to bully others." As the twins and their spiritual brother nodded in understanding and approval — they knew Jessica Gibbon was a sister lion; that she did THAT made her okay in their books — the leader of the Black Maidens added, "Atop her duties as the leader of the Fourth Battalion, Jess was in charge of our Spellcrafting Group." Ignoring the gaping looks from her new friends — in all the stories of the Black Maidens they had read over the years, their many innovations in various magical fields of study been discussed rarely if ever rated a single paragraph — Elizabeth added, "While I personally would say much of this stuff would be perfect for what I have in mind, I would like to pass it by her to see if she can improve on it. If we do add modifications and judge it safe for public usage, I'm sure it'll bring a lot more profit to your company over time."

"Well, if that happens, we can compensate her and her friends," George stated. "Our standard commission rates are five percent for ideas, seven for prototypes and ten for pranks that can be put into production right then and th-…"

A bell rang to announce someone walking into the shop. "Did someone mention my name?" a more free-looking version of Elizabeth Gibbon — who was dressed in a conservative business suit, though in Gryffindor colours of deep scarlet and gold — asked.

"When did you get here, Jess?" Elizabeth wondered.

"Fifteen minutes ago," Jessica stated before she fluttered her eyebrows playfully at the twins, who were drooling in awe at such natural, wholesome beauty. As Harry tried not to laugh and Margareta whispered things to Ginny, the younger Gibbon twin added, "I was going bloody stir-crazy up in space with you and Gretta down here, so I brought down some friends to keep an eye on you two. And go raid my vault at Gringotts."

"Who?"

"Aimée, Lila and Cara."

Elizabeth tried not to roll her eyes. All three of those girls were Jessica's closest friends; they all had also supported her when she had been promoted to the rank of _Obersturmbannführerin und Oberstleutnante_ and made the first non-German/Austrian commander of a battalion of the Schwarze Mädchen in early 1943. Aimée Sutone was a Walloon Belgian from Mons near the French border. She led the mission to deal with the local magical ministry in Brussels in late 1940 to destroy the loyalty stones that kept the magicals in that nation's African colonies enslaved to the "mother country," thus effectively stripping King Léopold III of nearly three-quarters of his magical combat force to support the Allies. She would finish the war with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, not to mention winning command of Third Battalion in late 1943. Lila Fontaine was a native of Morlaix on the English Channel coast of Brittany. Atop keeping the brigade headquarters staff running like a well-tuned violin, she also enticed dozens of fellow Beauxbâtons alumni to sign up to serve in the Magische Reichsarmee. That guaranteed that the "old regime" that had ruled wizarding France for centuries would finally collapse after the Liberation thanks to many "noble" sons and daughters swearing personal allegiance to the Führer…and, after the war, refusing to return things to "the way they always were." Because of her recruiting efforts, Lila was awarded the Pour le Mérite Magique. Cara Walthari was one of Jessica's company commanders. An Italian from the town of Mariano Comense near the border with Switzerland, she was one of the few Black Maidens who had magical combat experience dating from before World War Two; she had been assigned by the Italian government to help protect all that nation's volunteers sent to fight alongside the forces of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. She would later — in complete and total secrecy; only a dozen knew of _that_ particular operation — help an American archaeologist and colonel in the Office of Strategic Services named Indiana Jones evacuate treasures from the famous Abbey of Monte Cassino before it was destroyed by the Fifth United States Army in early 1944.

All three were — when they were not fighting someone — quite flighty girls who were always distracted by handsome boys…which, Elizabeth was quick to sense on noting that her twin was now giving Fred and George very appraising looks, hadn't gone away after their near-death experience at the Battle of the Gates.

_Oh, dear me…!_ the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen groaned to herself…

…just as the main door opened again to reveal three incredibly beautiful women, dressed like their friends in conservative business suits done in the colours of their old schools. "Elisa!" Aimée Sutone called out, her grey eyes sparkling with delight. "You won't believe this! I was able to access my Gringotts account in Brussels through the branch here! I've got nearly _six_ times the amount of money I knew I had in that bank back in '45! How…oh, _bonjour_!" she then breathed out with a throaty purr as those eyes locked on the Weasley twins, who both were gaping in drooling delight on seeing such a tall, slender woman with sunflower blonde hair styled in a bob at her shoulders.

"Indeed, a wonderful morning to you all," Lila Fontaine said with a polite nod, her dark brown eyes sparkling with profound interest. A gently shift of her long, straight brown hair made Fred and George both swoon with delight as they inwardly thanked all the gods and goddesses of Magic that they had been born men. As Ginny tried not to roll her eyes and Harry shook his head, Lila added, "A lovely shop you have here."

"Now, now, you two!" Cara Walthari gently scolded as she cuffed both Lila and Aimée on the backs of their heads. "Stop looking at these poor fellows like a pair of hungry goblins wanting to tenderize some rare flesh!" She then smiled politely at the twins, her dark brown eyes twinkling with delight as she winked knowingly at Fred and George. "Please forgive my companions, my friends. It's been quite a long time since they've enjoyed the companionship of such handsome fellows as both of you."

"Behave, Cara! You're just as bloody bad!" Elizabeth scolded as Margareta moved to expand the trunk she had taken from Julia Hoffman so she could get the others' personal gear. "Besides, our esteemed hosts are professional pranksters." As Jessica's blue-grey eyes widened with delight and the others perked with interest on hearing that, their leader waved them over the counter. "Look at this."

Jessica came over to quickly scan the dataPADD sitting there…before her jaw dropped. "Oh, my God!" she breathed out in awe. "You came up with all THIS?!"

Her hosts beamed with pride as they came over to stand to either side of her while Margareta came over to hand Lila, Aimée and Cara their personal belongings. "Pranking is serious business, Jess," Fred stated. "You had Zonko's back in your day as I recall. They'd got too damned stale for us by the time we were going through Hogwarts, so we decided we'd show people what REAL pranking was all about. We bought them out…!"

"_MIO DIO__**!**_"

Heads snapped around. "What is it?" Harry asked as he moved to comfort a now white-faced Cara, who had just drawn from her box of personal items a gold-trimmed red medal ribbon from which a red Maltese cross hung, that embossed with a gold annulus surrounding a blue field with a golden man's image on it, the annulus embossed with the words **PRO DEO ET PRINCIPE**. "That's no German medal…"

"No, Harry, it's the medal given to a Knight or Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great," Elizabeth stated as Cara — who was starting to shake like a leaf on seeing that a letter with the latter's home address in Italy on it and the seal of the State of Vatican City in one corner was contained with her personal belongings — allowed Aimée to take the medal from her hand as Lila moved to also comfort Cara. "It's one of the knighthoods the Pope can bestow on worthy believers. I'd suspect that…"

"What's this one?"

Eyes locked on Jessica, then everyone blinked as she reached into Cara's box to draw out a white-trimmed reddish-purple ribbon from which hung a white five-armed star over a green wreath of laurel tied at the base, the star trimmed in red and with inverted "V" points at the ends, that embossed by a circlet of golden clouds around a blue disk with thirteen silver stars in a hexagram formation. As people peered intently at the strange decoration, they didn't react when the door opened. "Looks American to me," Harry noted.

"It's the Legion of Merit, Mister Potter," a strange voice then declared from the direction of the doorway. "Rank of Legionnaire to be precise. I would assume Major Walthari was given that at the recommendation of Indiana Jones after she helped him get all the precious artifacts out of Monte Cassino in 1944. That, I believe, was the same reason Pope Pius XII made her a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory."

Heads snapped over…then both Fred and George both gaped in surprise on seeing the smiling man in funeral black standing by the entrance. As the Schwarze Mädchen all blinked in confusion as they sensed something strangely familiar about this newcomer, looks of awe crossed the Weasley twins' faces as their eyes went wide in realization. "Oh, my Heavens…!" Fred gasped as he turned to stare at his brother. "Forge…"

"Yeah, Gred?"

"Do you realize who our new friend here is?"

"Indeed I do, dear brother. After all…"

"…he was a man…"

"…who pranked the whole bloody world…"

"…while he was busy killing vampires!" both men finished together.

The newcomer smirked as Harry rolled his eyes. "You boys do that very well," he said.

"We've had years of practice," Fred admitted.

"And we are magical twins…Mister President," George noted.

Abraham Lincoln waved it off as the Schwarze Mädchen all gaped in shock. They had all — thanks to Regina Mitchell — known about the Great Emancipator's private hobby of hunting vampires, but never knew that the "Rail-Splitter" was still alive and well; after all, one doesn't survive a .44 bullet being shot into the _**back of the head at point-blank range**_! "I haven't been the President of the United States for seven score and five years, son," he said. "I appreciate the courtesy, but…"

"It's well-deserved, sir," Fred noted.

"How…?"

Lincoln focused on Elizabeth Gibbon. "We both were saved by the same man in the end, General Gibbon. I was protected from John Wilkes Booth thanks to Josef giving me an injection of ebony meson in my blood…while I suspect you and your friends had meson transmitter crystals secretly placed in your old bodies' brains sometime before you moved to destroy the World-Gate at Nurmengard after you learned of the betrayal of the Life-Bringer."

"The _**Rittmeister**_ saved you?!" Margareta gasped. "Why would he do that?!"

The nigh-immortal vampire hunter sighed. "When I was revived and pulled out of my grave in Springfield back in '65, Master Staff Sergeant Hecht, Josef confessed to me that he didn't care at all to see the man who destroyed someone who once betrayed him — I assume he was speaking of Adam Sewell — killed off because of some fanatic 'child' who couldn't accept that his tainted 'cause' was long since lost." His hazel eyes narrowed with disgust. "Given what was just discovered about Mister Nott's current 'allies,' that Mister Sewell is still amongst the 'living' would disgust Josef as it does me."

The others grimly nodded. "We'll get the bastards, sir," Jessica declared…

…before Lincoln suddenly tensed, his eyes widening in surprise before a cold look crossed his face and he reached under his jacket to draw his woodsman's axe with the mixture of silver and ruby meson on the blade itself from his personal warp-space pocket. On seeing that, Harry moaned. "Need your floo, guys!"

"Right!" George snapped as people sprang into action…

* * *

They had made their way to Diagon Alley unseen and not sensed by the magicals who lived in this hidden place off Charing Cross Road and had long flooded it with their power.

Not even the goblins of Gringotts — who truthfully wouldn't care about fighting between the human tribes as long as they could make some profit out of it — sensed the double company's worth of vampires who had been sent from hiding places across the length and breadth of Britain by their leader to sew panic amongst the magic-welding cattle who arrogantly saw themselves as the top of the metaphorical food chain in Europe…and hopefully make use of the special devices provided to them by Adam Sewell to drain magical cores in preparation for the battles to come against the alien crystal-bloods whose "benevolent help" was critically upsetting far too many apple carts.

And while the stupid wizards who had allied with their leader didn't know about this little raid — unlike their parents, people like Theo Nott and Draco Malfoy didn't really understand a tithe about what fighting a war was really all about — into Diagon, it wouldn't matter in the long term. With the memories of the Purification Wars far too fresh in the minds of their countrymen, this raid would — if it was done right — be seen by the idiots in the Ministry of Magic as the opening shot of another Dark Lord's campaign to topple the current regime for some idiot cause or another.

Finding the hidden entrances into Diagon and its branch alleys like Knockturn had been pathetically easy for the vampires; the mundane-repellant charms worked perfectly for the normal cattle, but not for the masters and mistresses of the night. Once they were inside the magical shopping zone, they — who had assumed mist form to ensure they couldn't be detected before it was too late — began to gather within the shadows.

It was almost perfect…

…save for a few things.

The hunters of blood didn't realize that an undying monster that had chased their brethren out of North America during the Score and Four was in Diagon today…

They didn't suspect that the leader of a brigade of battle-hardened combat witches who made destroying vampires who threatened their normal allies one of their specialities was also in Diagon, along with her twin sister and four close friends…

They didn't realize that they had been compromised from the start thanks to the idiot fools their leader "allied" with thanks to those fools' crystal-blood sisters…

Because of that, the people who had unleashed Death Eater Season on Voldemort thirteen years ago had come to Diagon in hopes of stopping such a raid…

And the vampires couldn't begin to _**conceive**_ of the idea that a young, humble servant of the Wise Lord Himself was watching this from her perch high in space…

* * *

Weasley Wizard Wheezes…

_POP!_

Everyone jolted on hearing that slight burst of compressed air, then looked up to see a paper owl flutter over their heads. "Oh, Merlin! She has GOT to teach us how she does that!" George said as Elizabeth held out her hand to allow the flying origami to land.

"She does it to you too, eh?" Lincoln mused, a chuckle escaping him.

The owl landed, then morphed into a wrapped sheet of paper around something solid. Elizabeth opened it…then blinked in confusion on seeing the pure gold skeletal key that had been wrapped inside the note. As she took the key in hand, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen then gargled in shocked surprise on feeling the raw, wild, ANCIENT magic that was fused into the device. As Harry tried not to scream out at the fact that his own home had been compromised by the Vinur Drekar so she could get her hands on _that_ particular key, Jessica scooped up the note that had been sent with it. Elizabeth then gasped as the key grew out to the size of the average longsword, which made all the others gape in awe and fear on seeing the device that could unlock the equivalent of Hell Itself on the fools that so angered its current welder.

**_«Say it…»_**

Elizabeth and Jessica croaked in disbelief on hearing a voice neither of them believed they would ever hear again in this lifetime. "Mummy…!" both sobbed.

**_«Say it, Elizabeth…don't be afraid…»_**

Elizabeth groaned out as she felt the key's power flood her from head to toe. As the voices of _**thousands upon thousands**_ of vengeful spirits began chanting their call for justice in her head, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen squeezed her eyes shut as she felt _Them_ reach into her very mind, rip away all her mental defences with the ease of flipping the pages of a book to get at the pure inner soul at the very core of her being. Remembering what she had learned from pureblood classmates about _Them_, she then tried to fight down the raw fear exploding from her heart at the idea of being struck down by _Them_ before she could see all her beloved sisters safe…

Silence.

Elizabeth croaked out in surprise as a tranquil sense of PEACE suddenly descended on her. As she stared in confusion at the key to Britain's first magical prison, she blinked as the voice of her late mother Alana Gibbon chanted once more inside her mind. As she then gasped on witnessing what had happened to her mother — who, along with her husband Edward, had been killed by a rampant mob of magicals during the London Blitz in some vain hope of striking at Grindelwald's Black Maidens by killing their "muggle" relatives — the scalding hate that had sent Elizabeth Gibbon across to Germany to fight for Gellert Grindelwald once more reasserted itself. That instantly chimed with the undying wraiths of vengeance the key now in her hand kept locked within the Maze Amongst The Rocks. Even if the Gibbons twins and their friends from Britain ultimately got their vengeance thanks to a sympathetic Margareta Hecht — who, during the raid she led on London to destroy the loyalty ward stones that made the United Kingdom the greatest magical power of the International Confederation of Wizards, personally interrogated and executed Minister for Magic Benedict Fenwick for his "crimes against humanity," then dispatched her team to hunt down EVERY wizard involved in the deaths of the relatives of the British members of the Schwarze Mädchen; in a gruesome reminder that the _**normals**_ held true power over all living beings on Earth, Margareta had the bodies all crucified and left in Knockturn Alley — and had no reason to seek out anyone else, actually SEEING her mother die within her mind made Elizabeth cry out in agony…before she gasped on feeling a pair of warm hands land on her temples.

«Don't let it take you!» Harry's voice called out into her mind as he employed his own modified form of Legilimency when mentally "speaking" to an Avalonian to get her attention. «You've shown your worthiness to hold the Key of Gonebren. Use it! The Queen has given you Her Warrant! Use it!»

_**«Listen to Harry, Elizabeth…my little Lilibet…the Crown has commanded…you must do the Crown's Will…we're ready for them…do it…»**_

With a hiss that mixed both wild passion and steely determination, Elizabeth Gibbon flung open the door of Weasley Wizard Wheezes and went to war…

* * *

Everyone in Diagon sensed it all at once before they saw it.

The goblins standing post at the entrance to Gringotts blinked before churlish smiles crossed their faces. The "Maze Dwellers" — as the Noble Tribe respectfully nicknamed the spirits that inhabited that prison deep within the moors of Cornwall — had never done anything against a goblin in the thousand years since Headmaster Salazar Slytherin of Kyme Eau created his quiet retirement home over a massive cluster of ley lines…and ultimately, thanks to the actions of several students of two of the other founders of Hogwarts, eventually gave the wizards of Britain a place they knew they could never conquer, much less control.

The wizards and witches doing their daily business all paused as a wave of icy cold washed over them from the direction of the Weasley twins' shop. As the memories of many — who recalled the times dementors had been sent to ravage the land at Voldemort's command during the 1970s and the mid-1990s — noted the horrid similarity between this cold and the chill those ghastly empathic vampires could unleash, the wiser of them then realized that whatever had come here could NOT be a dementor. After all, the lady who had founded the Technomancy Shoppe had wiped those things out of existence in 1997!

On recalling THAT, those wise people then paled in pure terror as the only OTHER cause for such a bone-chilling cold now flooding all of Diagon came back to them.

Gazing at the "T" junction between Diagon and Knockturn then made many soil themselves.

There walked _Generalmajorin_ Elizabeth Gibbon, the English-born leader of the Black Maidens…

…with the Key to **_That Place_** — now grown to the size of a sword — in her hand.

As wailing screams of mortal terror started, the vampires hidden in the shadows perked as they felt the strange cold flood past them from near the entrance of Gringotts.

Blood-red eyes focused on the blonde woman in the modern business suit as she calmly came to a stop at a place where she could look down both Diagon and Knockturn.

Twirling the sword-sized gold key in her hand so she could grasp it by the tubular shank under the hollow oval bow — thus allowing the tip of the lever lock-like blade to point down — this strange woman seemed to gaze intently at the shadows before she grinned.

With a twirl of her finger over her mouth, she bellowed out in a _Sonorus_ enhanced voice, "_**IN THE NAME OF MY SISTERS, I DEMAND THE VINDICTAM SANGUINIS!**_"

The vampires paused as all the screaming wizards all fell silent in wide-eyed shock, many of them all gaping on recognizing that strange Latin phrase.

"_**TO THOSE IN THIS LAND WHO DARED ATTACK US WHEN WE WERE HELPLESS AND TRAPPED BECAUSE OF SOMETHING WE**_** NEVER ****_DID, WE CALL UPON MAGIC ITSELF TO HEAR OUR PLEA FOR JUSTICE!_**"

Some of the vampires — who were knowledgeable in the language of ancient Rome — then tensed as they translated the phrase "Vindictam Sanguinis" into their native tongue, getting something that made them realize that whoever this woman was, she was invoking some of the oldest forms of blood magic into her cry for vengeance.

"_**TO ALL THE UNDEAD — AND ALL THEIR ALLIES IN THIS LAND WHO ALLIED ONCE TO A**_** HALF-BLOOD BASTARD CHILD ****_OVER A DECADE AGO! — NOW IN THE QUEEN'S REALM ETERNAL WHO WOULD TAKE OUR LIVES AND POWER TO STRIKE DOWN THOSE WHO NEVER WISHED THEM ILL, THE BLACK MAIDENS WILL DO UNTO ALL OF THEM AS WE DID THREE SCORE AND FIVE YEARS AGO TO ALL WHO OPPOSED US!_**"

As all the vampires snarled out their outrage at being PUBLICLY called out like that, the woman then bared her free arm to allow the great key in her hand to cut a shallow wound over the veins located there. Instantly, a burst of magic flooded out to wash over Diagon and Knockturn, surging past the five score and more of the undead to make them all gasp and retch on smelling the heady mixture of blood and pure magic — spiced with the burning, acidic, mineral-like smell of the Atom of True Life — emanating from that benediction sealed by the life blood of the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen.

Hearing the grunts and howls of pain from the undead fools who thought the shadows shielded them from detection, Elizabeth smirked as she sensed her twin and friends come up, drawn wands in their hands and looks of steely determination on their faces. As the witches and wizards around them remained still — save for Harry Potter, the Weasley twins and their sister emerging from Weasley Wizard Wheezes…not to mention a group of wizards and witches coming up from Rosa Lee Teabag — to await what would be called down next, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen tried not to groan. _Damned sheep and cattle, the whole bloody lot of them!_ she thundered to herself as Jessica, Lila, Cara, Aimée and Margareta formed a ring around their leader. Noting that, she dispersed the Voice Magnification Charm around her mouth before she allowed the Key of Gonebren to touch the flagstone walkway of Diagon Alley, allowing a spark to flash.

"We've vampires to kill!" she hissed out.

Everyone then gaped on hearing a haunting voice bellow out in turn…

_**«YE HEARD THE GOV'NOR, EVERYONE! LET'S BE AT 'EM!»**_

And with an explosion of fog and the roaring scream of thousands of vengeful spirits who had inhabited the Maze Amongst the Rocks for centuries, the Hollows came…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) _Harry Potter_ character and place notes:

**Doris Crockford** was one of the magicals who was in the Leaky Cauldron at the time Rubeus Hagrid brought Harry Potter there to get his school supplies in _Philosopher's Stone_. The time she went to Hogwarts — and her house affiliation — are of my invention, which I also used in the _Icemaidens_ series…as I also did with the owner of the Cauldron, **Tom Dodderidge** (as noted before, his family name is my invention).

The first name to Blaise Zabini's infamous mother, **Veronica Zabini**, is my invention; I first used the name in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_.

It was also in the _Icemaidens_ series that I introduced the given name to **Marcus Gibbon** (who was killed in _Half-Blood Prince_), not to mention introduce the fact that he had a sister, **Helena Gibbon**; she would appear in _Harry Potter and the Icemaidens_.

The exact location of **St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries** was never given in the novels save for it being somewhere in London. The location indicated above, near the **Hammersmith Broadway** shopping centre located five kilometres south of west from Buckingham Palace on Great West Road (Trunk Road A4), is my invention.

The **Rosa Lee Teabag** Teashop was one of the places located in Diagon Alley as noted in the _LEGO Harry Potter_ series of video games that came out in 2010 and 2011. This particular teashop also has a franchise in Hogsmeade. The name "Rosa Lee" itself — according to the Harry Potter Wikia — is Cockney rhyming slang for "tea."

2) Translations: **Zaubertränkemeister** — Literally "Master of Magical Beverages"; **Zaubertränkeherrin** — Literally "Mistress of Magical Beverages"; **Kapitän zur See** — Literally "Captain at Sea," the German naval rank title for the equivalent of a Navy captain/Army colonel/Air Force group captain (NATO rank code OF-5); **Schweinhunde** — Plural of _schweinhund_ ("pig-dog"); **Maxima cum Laude** — Literally "with maximum honour" though normally translated as "with very great honour," this is the term used normally in academia for an intermediary honor between the level of **Summa cum Laude** ("with highest honour") and **Magna cum Laude** ("with great honour")…but in the case of Meridiana, this marks the top student of any class, earning higher scores than even one declared _Egregia cum Laude_ (as noted in Part Three); **Car'-bómba** — The proper Russian pronunciation (using Scientific Romanization) for the **Tsar Bomb**, a fifty-megaton thermonuclear device that was tested on 30 October 1961 near the southwest corner of the north island of **Nóvaya Zemlyá** ("New Land") in the Arctic Ocean north of the Russian mainland; **Cha no Yu** — Literally "tea and hot water," this is the name always applied to a Japanese-style tea ceremony (which can be used, among other things, to help repair relations between two warring parties); **Mio Dio** — My God; **Pro Deo et Principe** — For God and the Prince.

3) As shown in the previous part, the general officers ranks in the German **Wehrmacht** ("Defence Force") were given slightly different titles than what would be seen as customary in the British/American tradition; after the new **Bundeswehr** ("Federal Defence Force") was created in 1955, the rank titles were adjusted to match the British/American standard. Thus, we get the situation where Margareta Hecht addresses **Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson** (1824-63) as _General_ when he was only a lieutenant general in the Confederate States Army. To remove such confusion, here is the comparison between the World War Two ranks of the Wehrmacht (both Army/Air Force and Navy) with the modern United States Army and Navy ranks (listed under the appropriate NATO rank codes):

**Special Rank**  
GE(A) — _Reichsmarschall_ ("Imperial Marshal")  
US(A) — **General of the Armies**

GE(N) — No equivalent  
US(N) — **Admiral of the Navy**

**OF-10**  
GE(A) — _Generalfeldmarschall_ ("Field Marshal General")  
US(A) — **General of the Army**

GE(N) — _Großadmiral_ ("Grand Admiral")  
US(N) — **Fleet Admiral**

**OF-9**  
GE(A) — _Generaloberst_ ("Senior General")  
US(A) — **General**

GE(N) — _Generaladmiral_ ("General Admiral")  
US(N) — **Admiral**

**OF-8**  
GE(A) — _General_  
US(A) — **Lieutenant General**

GE(N) — _Admiral_  
US(N) — **Vice Admiral**

**OF-7**  
GE(A) — _Generalleutnant_ ("Lieutenant General")  
US(A) — **Major General**

GE(N) — _Vizeadmiral_ ("Vice Admiral")  
US(N) — **Rear Admiral (Upper Half)**

**OF-6**  
GE(A) — _Generalmajor_ ("Major General")  
US(A) — **Brigadier General**

GE(N) — _Konteradmiral_ ("Counter Admiral")  
US(N) — **Rear Admiral (Lower Half)**

It should also be noted that the German Navy also had the rank of _Kommodore_ ("Commodore"), which falls in below _Konteradmiral_. However, in this case, the German version of a commodore is more a senior captain than a junior flag officer; those promoted to such ranks were normally in command of small formations of ships.

4) The origins of the term **Nozzers** as applied to recruits who attend the **Initial Recruit Training** course at H.M.S. _Raleigh_ is not known. A BBC documentary on the IRT course proposed that the term is actually a slurred contraction of the reply "No, sir!"…which recruits would be saying a LOT during the IRT course.

5) Notes on anti-Nazi forces and operations within Germany during World War Two:

The **Weiße Rose** ("White Rose") was a German **Widerstand** ("resistance") group opposed to the Nazis who were mostly intellectuals who advocated a non-violent approach to making the people of the land turn against Adolf Hitler and his cronies. Most of the members of this group were students then attending the University of Munich; their approach to voicing their objections to the Nazis was via graffiti or anonymous leaflets explaining their position as any sort of active resistance would see them killed. The White Rose group was active from June 1942 until the next February, when they were finally arrested by the Gestapo. Six of the group's leaders were eventually beheaded before the end of 1943…but the leader of another resistance group named the **Kreisauer Kreis** ("Kreisau Circle"), **Helmuth James ****_Graf_**** von Moltke** (1907-45), managed to smuggle the White Rose's leaflets to Britain via Scandinavia; leaflets containing the White Rose's message would eventually be dropped over Germany by Allied bombers. It surprised me that this group has NEVER been honoured with a ship name in the _Deutsche Marine_, so I decided that Germany's space aircraft carrier would bear that name.

**Unternehmen Walküre** ("Operation Valkyrie") was an emergency continuation-of-government plan devised by the leadership of the Wehrmacht to ensure that — in case of a general breakdown in civil order of the nation due to causes such as increased Allied bombings on Germany or the mass uprising of slave labourers — the reserve forces of the **Heer** ("Army") would maintain order. This particular operation would be eventually hijacked by military resistance forces against Hitler, culminating in the famous **20 June 1944 Plot** to assassinate the Führer via a briefcase bomb at his **Wolfsschanze** ("Wolf's Lair") field headquarters about five kilometres east from the East Prussian town of **Rastenburg** (today the Polish town of Kętrzyn in the province of Warmia-Masuria, located seventeen kilometres south of the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast). Tragically, the plot to assassinate Hitler failed and the ringleaders were eventually executed for their treason. The name "Operation Valkyrie" would be known to many thanks to the 2008 Bryan Singer film _Valkyrie_, starring Tom Cruise as **Claus Philipp Maria Schenk ****_Graf_**** von Stauffenberg** (1907-44), the German army colonel who carried the briefcase bomb into the Wolf's Lair that day. Again, just with the White Rose, no ship in the modern German Navy was named in tribute to Stauffenburg or his Valkyrie allies, so I honoured them with a space missile cruiser named after the operation plan they had used to dispose of the Führer and save the country.

6) **Unternehmen Rheinübung** ("Operation Rhine Exercise") was the first operational deployment of the famous battleship _Bismarck_ — accompanied by the heavy cruiser _Prinz Eugen_ — to carry out raids against the convoys keeping Britain alive and fighting against Germany. Launched on 18 May 1941, it was commanded by Admiral **Günther Lütjens** (1889-1941), who had commanded naval forces in the invasion of Norway and Denmark a year before and had also commanded a raiding mission in the North Atlantic with the light battleships _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ in **Unternehmen Berlin** from 22 January-21 March 1941, resulting in the destruction or capture of 22 ships. Unfortunately, Admiral Lütjens' luck with _Bismarck_ was nowhere near as good; the battleship and her cruiser companion were caught in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland on 24 May 1941, where H.M.S. _Hood_ was destroyed due to a magazine hit from _Bismarck_…but the German battleship was critically damaged in turn thanks to a lucky shot by the just-commissioned battleship H.M.S. _Prince of Wales_. Forced to retreat back to port because of leaking oil — and now with the Royal Navy howling for revenge at the loss of _Hood_, which had been the living symbol of Britain's senior service for two decades despite her being a **_battlecruiser_** with little deck armour, thus grossly unsuited for combat against a true **_battleship_**! — the _Bismarck_ almost made it. However, a lucky strike against the battleship's rudder thanks to attacking torpedo bombers from H.M.S. _Ark Royal_ saw _Bismarck_ literally sail into the guns of H.M. Ships _King George V_ and _Rodney_ on the morning of 27 May. After less than an hour of brutal bombardment, _Bismarck_ was a gutted wreck, with Lütjens and his flag captain, **Ernst Lindemann** (1894-1941) both dead. The surviving crew scuttled their ship just as the cruiser H.M.S. _Dorsetshire_ put torpedoes into her side to finish her off. Of the 2,200 aboard _Bismarck_ at the time, only 110 survived; _Hood_'s crew only had **_three_** survivors of a total of 1,418.

7) The **Grand Cross of the Iron Cross** (_Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes_) was a special award under the overall umbrella of the Order of the Iron Cross. As noted above, it was NEVER given for acts of bravery in battle…but to mark victorious generals in the Prussian Army (and later the German Army) as well as senior commanders of allied armies. First instituted in 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars along with the standard Iron Cross in both First and Second Classes, the Grand Cross was awarded to five such generals, including the Prussian commander at the Battle of Waterloo, Field Marshal **Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher** (1742-1819). Brought back in for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Grand Cross was awarded to nine people. Authorized again for the First World War, the Grand Cross was awarded five times, including to future President **Paul von Hindenburg** (1847-1934), who was a field marshal that had commanded troops on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. The Grand Cross was revived once more for the Second World War, but only awarded once, to the leader of the Luftwaffe **Hermann Göring** (1893-1946). Because of the fact that the Grand Cross NEVER symbolized bravery in battle — to say anything of the sheer level of corruption, cronyism and the abuse of drugs Göring was infamous for — the derision the Schwarze Mädchen feel for the man is quite understandable.

Atop the Grand Cross, there was even a HIGHER version of the Iron Cross that was awarded to symbolize the most successful single Prussian (and later German) battlefield leader in any conflict. This medal, the **Star of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross** (_Stern zum Großkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes_) — which, like the Iron Cross First Class, was not worn from a ribbon but was a medal that was buttoned on the jacket under the wearer's left breast — has only been awarded twice since the establishment of the Order of the Iron Cross in 1813, to Gebhard von Blücher for the Napoleonic War and Paul von Hindenburg for World War One. A prototype version of the Star of the Grand Cross was prepared for awarding in World War Two, but never given; this medal was found by the Americans after the war and is now displayed at the United States Military Academy Museum at **West Point** in New York on the west bank of the Hudson River.

As an aside, the Iron Cross and all its derivative awards were only authorized to be issued during a time of war. Thus, each time the Order of the Iron Cross was allowed to induct new members, the medals themselves were date-stamped on the bottom arm of the cross with the **series** year date. Thus, all Iron Crosses and Knight's Crosses won by the Schwarze Mädchen during Grindelwald's War are all said to be of the **1939 Series** of the Iron Cross. It should be noted that on the reverse side of the medal, the date **1813** is stamped to mark the year the Iron Cross was first instituted.

8) **The Viscountcy of Craiglockhart** (most recently Marcus Gibbon) denotes, as noted above, a suburb of the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, known in Scots Gaelic as _Creag Longairt_. Craiglockhart is five kilometres west of southwest from Holyrood Park.

9) The **Cŵn Annwn** (literally "hounds of Annwn") are the spectral hounds of the Otherworld (_Annwn_) as noted in Welsh mythology. They are often associated with all the many European legends of the **Wild Hunt**, where a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting — accompanied with horses and hounds — engage in mad pursuit across the skies, along the ground or just above it. The Cŵn Annwn were often associated with the movements of migrating geese, while other legends of the Wild Hunt pertain that the spectral huntsmen and their companions ride during the autumn and winter. In Welsh legend, the Cŵn Annwn — as with Wild Hunt legends in other parts of Europe — was seen as a symbol of impending death.

I was inspired to note about the Cŵn Annwn here thanks to their appearance in _Quoth the Raven, Nevermore_, a fanfic that is marked as one of my favourites here and is written by the wonderful writing team operating under the pen name **GenkaiFan**; they are also the authors of another favourite _Harry Potter_ fanfic story, _Poison Pen_. However, it should be noted that various elements of Celtic mythology — such as the appearance of the Irish war goddess **Morrígan** in _QtRN_ — has often made appearances in other various _HP_ fanfics.

10) The incident where Professor **Indiana Jones** was involved in the rescuing of priceless relics from the **Abbey of Monte Cassino** in 1944 was first noted on in _Phoenix From the Ashes_; it was because of that incident that Indiana was eventually awarded the Medal of Honour.

11) The **Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great** was establish on 1 September 1831 by Pope **Gregory XVI** (1765-1846, reigned 1831-46) as one of the five knighthood orders of chivalry that the leader of the Roman Catholic Church can bestow. This special honour is bestowed upon Roman Catholic men and women — and sometimes, in rare cases, to non-Catholics — in recognition of their personal service to the Holy See and to the Roman Catholic Church, through their unusual labors, their support of the Holy See and their excellent examples set forth in their communities and their countries. The Order of St. Gregory is divided into four categories, of which a **Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great** (post-nominal letters **DSG**) — as **Cara Walthari** became — is of the lowest rank.

12) The **Legion of Merit** (short-form **LOM**) is a military award of the United States armed forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued both to United States military personnel and to military and political figures of foreign governments. It is divided into four rank levels, of which the level of **Legionnaire** is the lowest; the LOM is normally awarded to heads of state or heads of government (the **Chief Commander** level), military chiefs of staff (the **Commander** level), general or flag officers and/or military attachés (the **Officer** level). Given the rather peculiar situation of Cara Walthari assisting Indiana Jones in his mission to Monte Cassino, awarding the Legion of Merit in such a case to what was then nominally an ENEMY OFFICER would be quite…unique.


	6. Interlude: The Hollows (Part 1)

**INTERLUDE  
****_THE HOLLOWS AND THE SECOND PURIFICATION WAR OF 1997_**

* * *

The Hollows.

In normal eyes, the word itself — when not used as a name — really doesn't mean much. It most often represents a state of emptiness within any form of chamber. Applied to geography, it is a term applied to a riverine type of valley shaped like a "V"…or to a low wooded area, akin to a corpse of trees. When used as a name, it often forms the noun element of a place designation for a location which implies either geographical term noted above, such as the Somerset town of Godric's Hollow.

In _magical_ eyes, however — when the term is said in plural format and capitalized — it implies something that no sane wizard or witch ever wants to encounter.

Which strikes those who know the truth of the Hollows of Gonebren quite odd.

That is because one of the most famous magicals in British history had been the one who _**created**_ the magic-sucking, soul-raping wraiths in the first place!

That person was Salazar Slytherin of Kyme Eau, one of the founders of Hogwarts.

Of course, pureblood traditionalists in the United Kingdom venomously deny ANY connection between the man who had become their patron saint over the years and the inhabitants of the most foreboding piece of real estate in the British Isles…especially when one acknowledges that the Hollows are, to the last, the undying spirits of _**muggles**_ who had either been slain or permanently damaged by magicals.

Given their ability to tear a person's very SOUL to pieces with only a short time of direct exposure, the belief that the Hollows loath ALL magicals gained much credence before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was passed in 1689; it was around that time that research done by the Unspeakables had discovered a more "humane" form of imprisoning criminals on an isolated island near the Shetlands named Azkaban.

Ever since the official "closure" of Gonebren Prison in 1705, the many dark myths concerning the Maze Amongst the Rocks and its inhabitants persisted.

It was only a privileged few who knew the truth about that place…

* * *

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Sunday 30 March 1997, breakfast… _

_"Well done, Harry-kun." _

_Hearing that accented voice, Albus Dumbledore shuddered before he gazed towards the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall to see the person who had become the bane of his existence standing close to the young man whose very life and future was intertwined with the survival of wizarding Britain. And who had, for many months, completely_ ignored _anything the Defeater of Grindelwald told him about what had to be done in his upcoming confrontation with Voldemort. It wasn't because Albus himself wanted to see Harry Potter die, of course; no true teacher wanted to see something ghastly like_ that _happen to a beloved student, especially when said student was the surviving son of two other beloved students. And it certainly wasn't because Albus had wanted to recapture the fame that had been dumped on his head after he had taken his former lover down at the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard in 1945. The Romans had long known — and wisely always remembered to advise their heroes, magical and non-magical alike — that all fame was fleeting. That had been a lesson Albus Dumbledore learned long before he became a social lightning rod in the wake of his defeat of Gellert Grindelwald, especially in the last few years when the forces allied to Voldemort began flexing their political and economic muscles in hopes of softening up wizarding Britain for a very violent take-over. _

_Ever since his first suspicions of Harry being made an accidental horcrux thanks to Voldemort in the autumn of 1981 appeared in his mind, Albus knew that the ONLY way to see the man born Tom Riddle finally struck down forever was to destroy the horcrux in Harry's head. It had been fortunate that Lily Potter's sacrifice that awful Hallowe'en evening almost sixteen years ago created an unbreakable blood-based magical shield around her son — invoking the most powerful forms of sorcery known to man — to keep him alive, much less keep him free of any overt influence from the soul fragment lodged in the curse scar burned into Harry's head. Not even Tom's use of Harry's blood almost two years ago at the end of the Triwizard Tournament had done anything to strip Harry of the protections his late mother gave up her life to bestow him even if being close to Voldemort always caused Harry pain. Magic was ultimately about_ **intent**_…and given Tom's total LACK of understanding concerning love — the "power he knows not" element of the prophecy Sybill Trelawney had spoken in 1980 that had started all this, Albus knew — and his mad desire to avenge himself on the boy that had somehow vanquished him, he could NEVER use the blood he had taken from Harry to try to breach the blood-wards surrounding 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging even AFTER Tom had been given a new body to use. _

_But now…! _

_Albus tried not to shudder as a new flash of pain surged up his right arm, a reminder that his time in this life was coming to an end. As he found himself regretting once more that he had not been open with Harry before that awful tragedy in the Department of Mysteries last June saw him accept Yomigawa Tsukiko's offer of apprenticeship with open arms, he tried not to scream out in frustration on noting what the Dark Lady of the Orient HAD been doing to the Boy-Who-Lived and the members of the Defence Association since she and her apprentices invaded Hogwarts at the start of the school year. It wasn't just intensive battle magic practice without the use of wands or spoken incantations — including the use of the Unforgivables even if they only were meant to be employed on a Death Eater's Dark Mark, which couldn't be outlawed since the warped protean charm was simply a_ **magical construct** _and not a sentient being! — in the Room of Requirement…which Albus DID approve of since such would ensure Harry and his friends would survive a confrontation with Voldemort and his people. But all the OTHER things Tsukiko — not to mention Nekane Springfield, the niece of the famous Thousand Master and a classmate of Harry's sister Rose and her friends from Meridiana — were bringing into it sent chills down the old headmaster's back as he recalled the many stories of the War of Liberation and what Tsukuyomi's army had done to those who earned their ire…which had been the vast majority of Europeans living in the colonies back in those days. _

_The most horrible part of it all in Albus' mind was that Tsukiko and her apprentices were teaching Harry and his friends martial arts like kendō and iaidō, not to mention aikidō, t'ae kwon-do and tàijíquán. And while that had come to hone bodies to a state where the boys of the D.A. resembled teenage versions of Martin Larsden and the girls seemed to be reflections of Dean Raeburn herself, the idea of using "muggle" fighting techniques would have the pureblood traditionalists — even those who hadn't joined Voldemort — howling in outrage! Atop that, there were special magical history classes mixed with military tactics, drawing on the experiences of many across the ages, from Sūn Wǔ to George Patton…not to mention masters of unconventional warfare like Switzerland's Hans von Dach, Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, South Africa's Jan Smuts, Mexico's Emiliano Zapata and Vietnam's Võ Nguyên Giáp; when Albus heard that Tsukiko was teaching the D.A. THAT, he knew that any conflict with the Death Eaters would see Voldemort's people getting a heavy dose of their own medicine…which could possibly wipe out whole families if Harry didn't go easy on them and give them an honourable way out to preserve those selfsame families for the Greater Good! Even more, there were classes in meditation and learning to protect one's mind from any form of Legilimency…which annoyed Albus even if such was an excellent tactic against Voldemort; it ALSO ensured that whatever ELSE Tsukiko, Nekane and the others were teaching Harry and his friends would remain a secret from the headmaster's passive probes…which, given Tsukiko's experience, could mean ANYTHING! _

_So what was THIS all about…? _

_"It wasn't too hard, Sensei," Harry replied; the room had gone totally quiet when the Dark Lady of the Orient had come to join them from wherever she had been staying, so the younger man's reply had echoed loud and clear in the Great Hall. Of course, since it was the start of the Easter holidays, over half of the school's population was missing, taking their spring break before the final term of classes would start in a couple of weeks. "I was glad that I could get it done so quickly. All the clues were there." _

_"Once you looked for them," Hermione Granger stated. _

_"Splendid," Tsukiko stated before walking over to the Ravenclaw table. "What of you and your group, Lisa-chan? Any success in your quest?" _

_"We found it, Sensei," Lisa Turpin stated as the others in her house beamed with delight. "I only just wish we had found the Diadem as well," she then lamented. _

_"Oh, I'm sure it's somewhere," the nigh-ageless Japanese sorceress mused as she gazed with narrowed eyes at the Grey Lady, who — with the other house ghosts and the other spirits of the castle — were in the Great Hall. As the spirit of the woman born Helena Ravenclaw ducked her head from that knowing look, Tsukiko moved on to the Hufflepuff table. "What of you and yours, Hannah-chan? Did you have some luck?" _

_"We found it, Sensei," Hannah Abbott said with a delighted smile. "It's just like Harry and 'Mione said; once you had the clues, all you had to do was connect the dots." _

_"Wonderful! And you and yours, Pansy-chan?" _

_Pansy Parkinson looked embarrassed. "We didn't have much luck, Sensei," she admitted. "We scoured the whole of the Chamber of Secrets and found clues, but it didn't lead us to Master Salazar's grave site." As those in the Great Hall who had NOT known about this odd quest the D.A. had engaged in — Albus Dumbledore being one of them! — all gasped on hearing that, Pansy shrugged. "It points to a place called 'Goon Brènn,' but that doesn't show up anywhere on an atlas of Britain! Or Ireland for that matter!" _

_"That's Cornish!" _

_Eyes locked on a wide-eyed Hufflepuff fifth year student, Michelle Truman; her older brother Gabriel had graduated from Hogwarts with excellent marks in 1994. She was also a native of Tinworth on the English Channel coast of Cornwall near Fowey. "Michelle-chan, what can you tell us of what that name means?" Tsukiko then bade. _

_"Well, that's the Cornish name for Bodmin Moor, Sensei," Michelle answered…before her eyes widened as something came to her. "Wait…'Goon Brènn'…?" _

_"That sounds awfully close to 'Gonebren.'" _

_Horrified gasps echoed through the Great Hall in the wake of Hermione saying the name of_ **That Place**_. Before someone could shout out to not speak the accursed name of the Maze Amongst the Rocks, Ron Weasley then nodded. "So the rumours ARE true!" he called out. "Master Salazar DID live at Gonebren after he left Hogwarts!" Ignoring a chorus of indignant cries from some students at all the tables — all pureblood traditionalists, the youngest Weasley son knew, with half of them bearing the Dark Mark on their arms; no doubt, they had been told by Voldemort to remain at the school to watch over Harry and his allies — he calmly cut open a bun before buttering it. "I wonder if the other rumour's true, too." _

_"What other rumour, Ronald?" Horace Slughorn wondered from his place at the head table. _

_"That Master Salazar created the Hollows, Professor Slughorn." _

_"_**THAT'S A LIE!**_" _

_Eyes locked on Charlie Vaisey, who had bolted to his feet from the head of the Slytherin table to point his wand at Ron. "Put that wand away, Mister Vaisey!" Minerva McGonagall snapped from her place beside Tsukiko. "That's fifty points from Slytherin for conduct unbecoming a prefect! I'll leave the detentions to Professor Snape," she added with a polite nod to Severus Snape at the head table, who nodded in return. _

_"You will see me tonight in my office after supper, Mister Vaisey," the current DADA professor stated with a cold voice. "Do not be late." _

_Charlie gargled before he sank in defeat back into his chair; ever since this school year started, it seemed as if all the staff had turned against the Slytherins who had once been able to get away with next to anything in Hogwarts. "Since the subject's been now raised, let's talk about that," Tsukiko then bade. "Anyone from Slytherin: Did any of your investigations into Salazar-dono's past reveal any connections with Gonebren?" _

_"We may have discovered several of them, Sensei." _

_Eyes locked on Daphne Greengrass. "Continue, Miss Greengrass," Severus bade. _

_Daphne smiled. "If, as Michelle just said now, 'Goon Brènn' is actually Gonebren…" — she ignored frightened hisses from many in the hall — "…and Master Salazar did go there after leaving Hogwarts in the wake of his so-called 'feud' with Master Godric — which, by the way, was not a real feud but a simple disagreement about how muggleborns were to be treated at the school! — he clearly encountered something at that place which he found SO fascinating that he spent the rest of his life researching it to understand more about it. How that resulted in the Hollows, I can't say." _

_"Well done, Daphne-chan," Tsukiko declared with a clap of her hands. "And yes, that IS the truth about Salazar-dono and Gonebren. Minerva-dono, Pomona-dono, Filius-dono, Severus-dono, I do believe some rewards are required at this time." _

_All four heads of house quickly awarded fifty points each for the research work done by the Defence Association. Once that was done, Luna Lovegood asked, "How did you find out, Sensei?" _

_"Find out what, Luna-chan?" _

_"The connection between Master Salazar and Gonebren?" _

_A mirthless chuckle escaped the Dark Lady of the Orient. "Luna-chan, I actually VISITED Gonebren back in 1927 and paid my respects at Salazar-dono's grave." _

_Shocked gasps echoed through the Great Hall. "Forgive me for interrupting this, Lady Tsukiko, but may I ask HOW?!" Filius Flitwick demanded from the head table. "That place…!" _

_"I had — at the time — never done harm to any non-magical native to this land, thus I never had cause to earn the ire of the Hollows," Tsukiko answered. "Besides, I never entered the prison itself; only those who possess the Key of Gonebren can do that. However, I DID locate Salazar-dono's grave. He was interred in a grotto next to the Circle of Justice, the amphitheatre located just to the east of the prison gates that was once used by the Wizard's Council in the early days of its existence as the place of judgement when they sentenced delinquents to a spell within Gonebren's halls to entertain the Hollows. After praying for the continued happiness of the Hollows — as they are true Kami in my eyes and deserve such for what they suffered when they were mortal — I offered my prayers to Salazar-dono. Some of the Hollows came to visit me when I was doing that and I had a wonderful conversation with them." _

_More gasps. "Aren't they sealed within the prison itself, Sensei?" Hermione asked. _

_"The Circle of Justice is within the overall grounds of Gonebren, 'Mione," Raven Malfoy answered. "The Hollows stay within the ward stones that seal Gonebren off from the outside world, but they can go to the Circle of Justice. I found that out when I went there after I graduated from Meridiana in '95 and became Sensei's apprentice." _

_People gaped at Draco Malfoy's sister. Ever since Raven had come to Hogwarts, her brother had venomously denied that Raven WAS his sister, even going so far to threaten Voldemort's wrath on anyone who dared tried to relay such to the_ Daily Prophet_ or the Wizarding Wireless Network. The members of the D.A. eventually learned Draco HAD cancelled his family's subscription to the magical broadsheet just after his father's incarceration in Azkaban to ensure his mother would never learn of her lost child; Draco also threatened to buy out the majority of the shares in WWN to keep them silent. When Raven herself had been asked about it by Ron on a Hogsmeade weekend, she explained that since she had lived pretty much on her own since her rebirth, it would feel odd to welcome a mother she had never known into her life. Since Narcissa deferred to the pureblood radicals who fought under Voldemort even if she wasn't marked like Cassiopeia Lestrange's parents were, Raven was unsure if she would welcome her mother with open arms…or slit her throat. _

_"Oh, my! You actually talked to the Hollows?!" Luna asked, her eyes wide with awe as she gazed on Raven. "How did they get to be that way?!" _

_"Well, to answer the million yen question, it WAS Master Salazar who created the ward stones that help allow the spirits of normals to become Hollows," Raven stated, ignoring the hiss from many in the hall, before she added, "But that was because the first generation of Hollows — who, when they were mortal, befriended the kind wizard who had come to live with them after he retired from Hogwarts — were the first_ **non-magical metahumans** _to possibly arise anywhere on Earth since the Immortals first began appearing millennia ago!" _

_Silence. _

_More silence. _

_Still more silence. _

_And then… _

_"What type o' metas were they, Raven?" Rubeus Hagrid asked; even if he hated Draco and the other traditionalists, the half-giant just adored Draco's sister. _

_"High-order telepaths who also learned how to master ki, Professor," Raven answered. "They had the ability to project their souls out of their bodies — 'astral forms' as we'd call it at Meridiana — after a period of meditation, plus use their powers to scan through a person's mind. And if necessary,_ **burn** _that mind out with their power." She then shrugged. "At first, Master Salazar believed he was with a group of Meridiana graduates setting up their own community. But he didn't sense any magic beyond the power of the ley lines that intersected under their village, so he knew something odd was going on there. They weren't immortals, daywalker vampires or any sort of other being he was aware of who could possess even a tithe of such abilities…and there wasn't a scent of mesonium anywhere that indicated that_ Freiherr _von Taserich or Master Hosan — or any 'children' of the_ Freiherr_'s — had been by. So he went off to China to discuss how this could have happened with ki masters he met in his youthful travels before he got together with Master Godric. When he got back to Gonebren, he then discovered a burned out village…and all the inhabitants slain to the last, even the children." _

_Gasps echoed through the hall on hearing that. "Who did it?!" Minerva demanded. _

_"Students from Hogwarts, Lady Minerva," a strange, echoing voice then answered. "All of them were former apprentices of Master Godric and Mistress Rowena." _

_Eyes spun up to gaze upon the Bloody Baron, who had floated over to hover close to Raven. "Ælfweard-dono, what do you know of that story?" Tsukiko asked. _

_The spirit of the man born Ælfweard Cerdic of Ethandun — a member of the Royal House of Wessex who had become Salazar Slytherin's first adult apprentice after Hogwarts' founding in 925 C.E. — politely smiled. While he was not as much of a conversationalist as some of the school ghosts, he had found this visiting arch-mage from the Land of the Wa to be a delightful person to spend time with. "All of those creatures were incensed that my master 'abandoned' his post as co-Headmaster of Hogwarts because of his disagreement with the others concerning the welcoming of normal-borns into the school. It wasn't because Master Salazar loathed normal-borns; that is the farthest from the truth!" As the traditionalists gasped in shock — to say that Salazar Slytherin was NOT against muggleborns was practically a heresy in their minds — the Baron smiled. "What he had no patience for was the fact that normal-borns were almost always illiterate and had no sense at all about personal hygiene. The Dark Ages had reigned over Europe ever since the fall of Rome centuries earlier and too many were afraid of the followers of the Prophet Muḥammad to accept the knowledge the Muslims were saving as they moved to spread their faith." He shook his head. "When both Master Godric and Mistress Rowena found out what had happened to my master's friends, they were grief-struck. Both gladly offered to help my master seek justice for his lost friends of Gonebren; my master had always kept his friends — AND THEY ALWAYS WERE HIS FRIENDS! — appraised of what he found!" _

_"But Uncle Salazar waved off such an offer from Mother and Uncle Godric," the Grey Lady then added, causing everyone in the hall to gasp in disbelief; she never talked at ALL to anyone…and very few in Hogwarts had ever known this woman was the child of one of the Founders in the first place! "He couldn't ask his friends to strike down their students; he knew how much they loved them even after they committed such a heinous crime against people who wished them no ill will. So he took knowledge he gained while in the Orient and used the ley lines of Gonebren to call back the spirits of his lost friends. He tied their souls to special ward stones given to him by the Immortal Master — who was in China at the time of Uncle Salazar's last visit there — and helped them learn how to track down those who had slain them." _

_"And the Hollows were unleashed," the Baron finished for his would-be wife. _

_People in the Great Hall shuddered on hearing that dire statement from the Slytherin house ghost. "After the fools who slew his friends were done away with, Salazar-dono decided there had to be a check on those magicals who would abuse their gifts when with the normals, much less those who would develop non-magical metahuman powers in the future. He realized that if it happened once, it could happen again. So he spent the rest of his life dedicating himself to prepare the ward stones of Gonebren to allow new Hollows to arise from the spirits of any normal in Britain who was wronged IN ANY WAY by magicals! And in his will, Salazar-dono — with the agreement of the Hollows — gifted Gonebren and what lay within unto the Crown of England in the person of King Edmund the First to ensure that the magicals of the land did not abuse their gifts of Magic," Tsukiko finished. _

_"That's a LIE!" _

_That was Charlie Vaisey, who had an outraged look on his face. "How can it be a lie, Vaisey?!" Marcus Belby, the seventh year Ravenclaw prefect and a member of the Slug Club — and one who had joined the D.A. this year — snapped. "Why would your own house ghost lie about his former master?! Or my house ghost lie about her mother?! THEY WERE THERE! They all saw it happen! It's not their fault that arrogant people like you and your friends twisted those stories because of idiot beliefs in the superiority of purebloods over half-bloods and mug-…!" He sputtered before shaking his head. "Ah, sod it! Like_ **normal-borns**_! They should damn hell make the word 'muggle' a bloody Taboo!" As people gaped at him, Marcus smirked as he crossed his arms and gave Charlie a knowing smile. "How many squibs does YOUR family have, huh?" _

_"_**HOW DARE YOU…?!**_" _

_Charlie gasped on seeing Marcus' normally-hazel eyes suddenly glow the sickly green of a Killing Curse. "How dare I?" the Ravenclaw calmly wondered as the Slytherin sank into his chair, his face as pale as a sheet as he tried not to soil himself. "The facts are out there, Vaisey. I can see why the Schwarze Mädchen came up with the term_ leicheblut schweinhund _to describe people like…!" _

_"Mister Belby, that's enough!" Albus snapped. "That's…!" _

_"Oh, do be quiet,_ Mister _Dumbledore!" Marcus snapped back as he glared intently at the headmaster, his eyes still glowing. "You had YEARS to clean up this mess! You knew from the start that lying bastard child that became Voldemort would be trouble! But you never listened to a THING Major Raeburn taught you before you took Grindelwald down in '45 about_ **appeasement** _and how that caused World War Two, BOTH in Europe and in Asia! Thanks to that, WE have to deal with this mess! Since your way would get us all KILLED, we'll do it in the way that's been proven to work! So sit down and kindly be quiet while more_ learned _people speak!" He shook his head as his eyes turned back to normal. "And to believe you used to be a Gryffindor. I'd think Master Godric would be ASHAMED of you!" _

_As Albus sputtered in shock, Marcus then gazed on Tsukiko. "Sensei, I'm sure that you'll be happy to escort our friends from Slytherin to Gonebren sometime this week so they could pay their proper respects at Master Salazar's grave. Would it be alright if those of us from the other houses come along? It's high time that this stupid inter-house rivalry that's been perpetuated because of LIES is brought to a final end!" _

_"I think all of Hufflepuff will gladly join you on that, Mark," the seventh year Hufflepuff girl's prefect, Maxine O'Flaherty, added. "This schism must end." _

_"Oh, indeed it must, Maxine," Luna stated. "While we're there, we can go look for the hidden keys to Gonebren." As many people in the room gasped on hearing such a ghastly proposal, she added, "I'm sure Master Salazar made a set of back-up keys just in case the main ones were lost or stolen from Buckingham Palace. They would be nice to have around just in case so that Mister Who and his silly followers will behave themselves from now on. After all, it's been fifty-one years since the Hollows snacked on the souls of evil wizards and witches. They must be quite hungry now." _

_Many of the traditionalists in the room choked on their breaths as they stared wide-eyed at the silvery-blonde Ravenclaw fifth year who was both one of the "Ministry Six" and one of Harry Potter's closest friends. "'Mister Who?'" Ginny Weasley teased. _

_"Well, it would be rude to call him 'You Know,' Ginny," Luna said with a wink. _

_Roaring laughter filled the room in answer to that…_

* * *

Of course, there were no hidden keys to the Maze Amongst the Rocks.

The Crown had been given all magical tools needed to access the place in 1705 by then-Minister for Magic Eldritch Diggory after the opening of Azkaban Prison. It was for quite understandable reasons; the grounds of Gonebren had been Crown Land for almost eight centuries and the prison that had been raised in the moors of Cornwall had been run by the Wizard's Council there ONLY with the permission of the Sovereign. Once Azkaban was opened — the island had then been under the ownership of a Norwegian wizard who dabbled from time to time in necromancy, thus making it part of the sovereign territory of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway; the transfer of national title to the island was arranged between the Ministry of Magic and their counterparts in Copenhagen thanks to a private agreement between Queen Anne of the United Kingdom and King Christian VI of Denmark-Norway — and the prisoners were transferred, a Magical Royal Proclamation was issued to give Eldritch Diggory's government the full right to administer Azkaban without Crown oversight while Gonebren would remain in the Crown's hands, closed for regular use…though held "in readiness for the service of Our Crown should a threat to the safety of Our Realm" arise that would require the need for the Maze Amongst the Rocks to be reopened.

That had happened many more times than most magicals in Britain believed.

After all, since right after the Separation Act was made law in 1692, there were those regardless of blood status who remembered the eternal bound of loyalty to the Crown written in the Preamble to that act and would gladly — once summoned by the reigning monarch to Windsor Castle and later Buckingham Palace — go forth to do the Crown's bidding, usually with the Key of Gonebren in hand to ensure justice was done.

The person known throughout the normal world as "Jack the Ripper" was one such target of the Crown to experience the power of the Hollows in the wake of Gonebren's "closure" in 1705. An investigation of the Whitechapel murders of 1888 revealed to John Hickney, a normal-born graduate of Hogwarts and alumnus of Hufflepuff then working for the Metropolitan Police, that said killer was a pureblood fanatic who believed the prostitutes were actually "mudbloods"; the fatal wounds were done in a manner that harkened to ancient sacrifices done by the druids of old. Before he could contact friends in the Ministry of Magic to alert them about this, John was summoned to Buckingham Palace for a private audience with Queen Victoria, given a certain key, then ordered to "find the villain and ensure he or she will never threaten Our Realm again." With the ancient power of the Hollows — now joined by the vengeful ghosts of the Whitechapel victims — helping him, John quickly tracked down the culprit.

Much to his surprise, "Jack" was actually a WOMAN, a Gryffindor alumnus named Bogeria Lestrange, who — after being turned over to the Hollows — was revealed to have gone mad because she had been rejected by the man she wanted to marry…with him actually marrying a _**normal-born**_ of all things! After the Hollows turned Bogeria's mind to mulch, John retrieved the comatose witch with the Key of Gonebren, then secretly dumped her in the foyer of the Lestrange mansion outside London before reporting his mission done to the Queen.

No matter how much Bogeria's father howled to then-Minister for Magic Faris Spavin to find the monsters responsible for the brutal mind-rape of his child — Bogeria would die in St. Mungo's despite all attempts by the healers to restore her mind; none of them had ever suspected the dark inhabitants of _That Place_ had been involved — John Hickney kept silent about his mission for Queen Victoria right to the day he died.

John DID ask the Queen about the fact that his mission to track down the "Ripper" had been done without involving the Ministry of Magic…who — as he understood it — were, by the rule of the law, supposed to deal with such things! After a moment's contemplation, she replied, "_There are times I wonder if separating you magicals from the rest of the country in King William's time was the wisest thing, Master John. All this time, those of us who wear the Crown have heard of inexcusable behaviour by the 'purebloods' who view themselves far above the other living beings who call Britain home. And because they hold such sway over the Ministry and the magical economy, attempts by honest people to deal with those who break the law sometimes fail. That is what this is for in the end._" Here, she pointed to the Key. "_Thanks so much to Headmaster Slytherin, I — and those who came before me and those who will follow me — have the means to ensure that such miscreants who believe themselves above the law will answer for their crimes._"

Only when Grindelwald's War ended did the whole of wizarding Britain finally remember that Gonebren and the Hollows were still out there…and could be unlocked ONLY at the command of the ruling monarch of the United Kingdom, a person almost all — save those raised in normal society — at the time believed to have utterly no relevance in the day-to-day life of British wand magicals. When that shocking revelation — made in late 1945 when warriors of the Magische Reichsarmee were taken out of Gonebren by the Québec-born member of the War Hawks, First Officer Heather Thompkins of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, when she went to the Maze Amongst the Rocks with King George VI's warrant to release the prisoners so they could be repatriated to their homelands — broke out in the _Daily Prophet_, the pureblood elite screamed out to get the keys to That Place from "that stupid muggle" so that a way to destroy the Hollows once and for all time could be found.

Calling the King a "stupid muggle" in front of Heather Thompkins — not to mention the other War Hawks — turned out NOT to be a wise thing to do.

Between Heather and her friends, more damage was done to the purebloods of Britain than Yomigawa Tsukiko had done during the War of Liberation!

Furthermore — as if to add insult to injury, it seemed — a Magical Royal Proclamation was issued to "gently" remind the King's errant subjects that the _**Crown**_ was the supreme authority in the United Kingdom for the magicals of the land, NOT the Minister for Magic or the Wizengamot!

And should people forget that and move to rebel against the Crown, Azkaban would be destroyed by the Protector of All Life and the rebels would all face _**Gonebren**_.

That shut people up for a few decades…until the First Purification War spilled out into the normal world in the 1970s. While King George VI's daughter didn't call upon Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to summon the War Hawks back to duty, she DID call upon loyal wizards to visit her to make use of a certain key.

Among them was Ulysses Cuffe. Mistakenly credited for using specially-designed wards to kill off the Death Eaters at Romney Marsh in 1979 — he was a well-trained curse-breaker, so that conclusion had been easy for the general public to make — he actually used the Hollows' power to wipe out the monsters who came to threaten his normal-born wife Kathleen and all their neighbours. As had been done many times before, he stayed silent about his mission to the Crown to this very day, glad to have performed his "Royal Service." Given that the bodies of the slain — which included some of Voldemort's oldest advisers from his days at Hogwarts in the 1940s — were made to disappear off Land's End, there was no way for anyone to learn the truth of what happened. Of course, by that time, the Ministry had succumbed to the "eye for an eye" policy of the senior Barty Crouch, so no follow-up investigation had been made by the DMLE despite the Wizengamot's demands for such, even from those who didn't support the Dark Lord.

A year after the "Massacre at Romney Marsh," Blaise Zabini's mother Vanessa was given the Key to deal with a would-be suitor named Melvin Kneen, a former housemate and classmate of hers. He was a man who joined Voldemort in hopes of enslaving his "Nessie"…and to ensure he would get her, Melvin used Nerio's ugliest-known hex — the horrid Curse of Maha; when used on a target witch, this ultimately killed off those wizards who might wish to seek her hand — on her to see to it all of her seven husbands would die…including Blaise's father George, then the Baron of Lewisham. Melvin was also an expert in potions who wanted to create a magical biological weapon to wipe out all the normals in the land. The Hollows — including the spirits of those girls Melvin sacrificed for his research — rendered him brain-dead and Vanessa left him _crucified_ in Knockturn Alley as a stark visible warning to the Death Eaters to not push their luck.

A year after that, Voldemort was effectively destroyed by Lily Potter.

By then, the lesson had been taught to those of his supporters who survived and evaded Azkaban: Someone on the outside _knew_ what they had done…and they were _**watching**_!

And while the ninja-like stealth and absolute secrecy of such missions scared many, that didn't stop people like Lucius Malfoy from dreaming of the chance to make the "filthy muggles" submit to their "betters" once and for all time.

When she learned of those attitudes, the Queen was NOT amused.

So — in the wake of the mass break-out of prisoners in Azkaban in the early winter of 1996 — she called on Emperor Akihito of Japan and asked a favour.

The Heavenly Sovereign, glad to help his friend in such a trying time, had the directors of the regional Magical Associations — ALL of whom EACH had the right to vote in the International Conference of Magical Communities — introduce a joint resolution in Geneva concerning the "British question."

Once appraised of what was REALLY going on in Britain thanks to the Queen via one of her normal-born Palace servants acting as messenger, the ICMC delegates unanimously voted to call on the Lady Tsukuyomi-no-Tsukushi to take Harry Potter under her direct apprenticeship — free of all influence from the Ministry of Magic and ESPECIALLY Albus Dumbledore; by then, the man's failures to deal with the monsters created by his "forgive and forget" approach to things at Hogwarts and how that attitude let them literally get away with murder forced many in Geneva to conclude that it was long since time he retired — so that "Harry Potter may deal with the villains who threaten the safety of us all without hindrance and with the best hopes of survival only good training will provide."

Accepting that declaration for Britain was Percy Weasley, who — having long grown tired of the ghastly corruption within the Ministry he had been exposed to since his graduation from Hogwarts in 1994 — stayed quiet about it until the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. There — after getting the chance to watch the Dark Lady of the Orient disarm Albus Dumbledore with a soulsword to render the Elder Wand ineffective, not to mention learn that the Curse of Helga Hufflepuff had actually saved Harry Potter's _**sister**_, who had died while still within Lily Potter's womb in 1981! — he then got the chance to drop the boom on a very harried Cornelius Fudge…

* * *

_Level One of the Headquarters of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic, Monday 1 July 1996, early morning… _

_"Do you realize I could have you in Azkaban right now, Weatherby?!" _

_Percy Weasley almost looked bored as he crossed his arms. "_Mister _Fudge, what happens to me doesn't matter right now." As the man before him turned a violent shade of puce on sensing the total lack of respect in the junior assistant's voice, the third-oldest son of Arthur and Molly Weasley then added, "It's what's going to happen to YOU once the news of the Lady Tsukiko taking Mister Potter on as her new apprentice gets out to the general public. As it will be in this morning's_ Daily Prophet_." _

_"I want her arrested!" Cornelius Fudge then snapped, spinning on Amelia Bones. "Do whatever you have to do, Amelia! I want that woman out of this country!" _

_"That can't happen, Cornelius," the director of the DMLE warned. _

_"WHAT?!" _

_"She is under diplomatic immunity imposed by the ICMC, as are all her apprentices from Meridiana that will be coming with her to stay in the country for the time being while she prepares Mister Potter to deal with You-Know-Who," Amelia stated. "If you try ANYTHING on any of them, the ICMC leadership will recommend that your government should have its accreditation_ **revoked**_! You know what might happen next, I believe." _

_THAT made Cornelius turn stark-white. Losing official ICMC recognition would be an open invitation to anyone to launch any sort of military action against wizarding Britain without any other party interfering; this was seen as legal under the self-defence clauses in the Treaty of Geneva that saw the ICMC formed in the first place. And given how the British had arrogantly thrown their weight around the old ICW before 1946, there were a lot of magical governments around the world who would love the chance to put the "arrogant berks" in this land down…chief of which were the governments in former British colonies in Africa and Asia whose citizens had suffered horrendously before the Schwarze Mädchen under Margareta Hecht effectively liberated them during Grindelwald's War. _

_And given the year of denials over the return of Lord Voldemort to corporeal form… _

_"We can train Harry!" he then spat out before spinning on the other man sitting in the room. "Albus! You knew about this all along! Why haven't you done anything to train Harry to deal with You-Know-Who since he came to Hogwarts five years ago?!" _

_"I_ have _been preparing Harry for that, Cornelius!" Albus Dumbledore stated. "And while Harry has suffered because of it, he's prevailed every time! I agree with you; there's no need whatsoever for Tsukiko to be involved in this!" He then ruefully shook his head. "Sadly, though…I cannot persuade the people in Geneva to understand." _

_Cornelius gaped. "What…?" _

_"The ICMC elected a new Supreme Mugwump when you removed the Ministry's support for Headmaster Dumbledore last summer," Percy explained. "He's Emilio Ramirez of Spain. As you probably know, he's a veteran of the Magische Reichsarmee who's a personal friend of Lady Tsukiko's; when he surrendered with his brigade, he did that to the Americans, thus avoiding Gonebren." As Cornelius gargled on hearing_ **That Name**_, Percy added, "He was the one who organized the vote in February to ask Lady Tsukiko to take Harry under her charge. The vote I TRIED to warn you about…but because you were so intent on inflicting Ms. Umbridge on the students of Hogwarts, you didn't realize the_ true _danger until it was too late to stop it." He shook his head as Amelia and Albus gaped at him and Cornelius sputtered in outrage. "You know, I long looked forward to working here at the Ministry. I would serve my people and help support my family. But ever since I came to this place, I've been sickened by the sheer_ insanity _that rules almost everything that happens here! I won't resign; I can only now be impeached by the Wizengamot…and without the support of your 'friends' now cooling their arses in Azkaban — or taking dirt-naps in their family tombs — you won't have the votes to pull it off. If you survive YOUR impeachment, of course." _

_He turned to leave before pausing. "By the way…if you think Lady Tsukiko being in the country now is bad enough, there's worse waiting in the wings," he icily warned. _

_"What are you talking about?!" Cornelius snapped. _

_"The Key to Her Majesty's Prison_ **Gonebren**_, you stupid boy." _

_Amelia shrieked out as Cornelius gargled and Albus gaped while an invisibility field close to the entrance to the Minister's office faded to reveal a smirking Yomigawa Tsukiko. "Apologies for that, sir," an amused Percy stated. "The Lady Tsukiko wished to surprise you. I felt it was only right and proper to aid her in that quest." _

_"Considering that those with diplomatic immunity cannot be refused entrance to these chambers, Percy-dono, you had no right to stop me anyway," Tsukiko stated before she gazed in amusement at a pale Cornelius and a shivering Amelia. "Oh, do sit down, boy!" the Dark Lady of the Orient snarled, which made him scramble for his chair as he tried to put as much distance as he could from this walking nightmare in white-and-red robes. "And stop shivering, Amelia-san," she added as she glared at Amelia Bones. "You're the director of law enforcement here. It's unbecoming of you." _

_Amelia tried not to soil herself as those ebony orbs focused on her for a moment. As Percy tried not to laugh — much that he respected Amelia Bones for her wanting to follow the law to the letter, she really was too stiff-lipped at times — at that sight, Albus moved to rise from his chair. "Tsukiko, please! There's…"_

KLONK!

_A gargled gasp escaped the poor headmaster after a large black_ **kettlebell** _of all things — that marked with_ **100T** _in white on the flanks! — slammed on his head! As he collapsed dazed to the floor, Tsukiko smirked. "You almost got that spell right, Rose-chan," she declared. "Well done. I expect you to teach that to Harry-kun as soon as possible." _

_"Hai, Sensei!" _

_Amelia gasped in shock as another invisibility screen dropped, revealing a living ghost in white-and-red, complete with flame-red hair, green eyes and reading glasses. "Oh, Merlin…!" she breathed out as Cornelius gaped wide-eyed at the sight of this near-replica of Lily Evans in her fifth year at Hogwarts standing there, never mind that she had been able to sneak into his office unseen! "You look…" _

_"Like my mother save for my wearing glasses," Rose Potter derisively declared, the scorn in her voice making the older woman wince. "You know, when Big Brother told me about how LITTLE he knew about Mother and Father and what they ultimately fought and died for, I thought he was joking. After all, he had all the teachers at Hogwarts and the children of our parents' friends to tell him everything about them. But NO! No one — save probably for Rubeus Hagrid and Remus Lupin — ever said a THING about Mother and Father to my brother! Where was your niece when Big Brother needed to know about things in this society?!" A mocking tone then entered her voice as she answered, "'Oh! He's the Heir of Slytherin! He's evil!' 'Oh! He's stealing Cedric Diggory's glory! He's greedy!' 'Oh! He's lying about You-Know-Who'…" A disgusted look then crossed her face. "Why do you call the Slit-Eyed Albino that anyway?! Don't you know what the word 'Voldemort' means?!" Ignoring the jolts of gaping shock from Percy, Amelia and Cornelius, Rose shook her head. "And to believe Big Brother STILL cares for you inbred idiots! Why he didn't leave you twits behind when he realized what a bunch of lying, two-faced hypocrites so many of you are, I will NEVER understand! I had my reasons for staying away from Big Brother…but he understands because there were things out of my control. You people were IN control all along…and you did NOTHING!" _

_"B-b-but…" _

_"Oh, shut up!_ **NEBULA HYPNOTICA****_!_**_" _

_Cornelius gargled as a fine mist appeared around his head before he collapsed into a chair, a loud snore then escaping him. Rose blinked before shaking his head. "I sure would hate to be his wife," she muttered before sitting on the couch close to the door. _

_"Tell Amelia-san everything, Percy-dono," Tsukiko then bade. _

_Amelia tensed as Percy gazed on her. "Here's what I found when I investigated Harry's history, Madame Director," he coldly declared. "NO check-up in all the ten years he was living with the Dursleys by Wizarding Child Services, which is MANDATORY for all wizarding orphans cared for by muggle relations! NO looking into the bouts of accidental magic Harry endured — which, as has been proven again and again,_ **always** _happens in times of great personal stress! — while he was growing up in Little Whinging; again, that was mandatory in his case! NO advising him of his future duties as the Lord of House Potter, to say anything of preparing him to accept his lordship the instant he walked into Gringotts before his first year…and that doesn't count for the effective THEFT of his vault keys during that time! And NO decent medical examination done to him to correct his malnutrition…which SHOULD have been the FIRST thing Madame Pomfrey noted when he came to Hogwarts back in 1991! Maybe then, the situation concerning his scar could have been looked at! Did you realize what was really INSIDE that thing Magi Potter here cut out with a soulsword?!" _

_"Wh-what?" a pale Amelia sputtered. _

_"A horcrux." _

_"P-p-Percy, st-stop…!" _

_"Oh, do shut up, Albus," Tsukiko stated as she glared down at the still-dazed Albus Dumbledore. "Your mania for secrecy — to say anything of your refusal to deal with that stupid little boy when you had the chance — was responsible for the deaths of_ **six thousand people** _during the 1970s! All their deaths — Rose-chan's and Harry-kun's parents, Percy-dono's maternal uncles, plus so many others — are on YOUR head in the end, Albus!" As the headmaster paled on hearing that, the Dark Lady of the Orient smirked. "See where your policy of_ appeasement _ultimately created?" _

_"Wh-wh-what is th-th-that…?" Amelia sputtered. _

_"It's a soul-jar, Amelia-san. Not so different from the classical process of creating a_ nŏksbae _that was done in Korea two millennia ago…though created with far more darker intentions and needing the murder of an innocent to ensure the soul-break cleanly occurs," Tsukiko answered, which made Amelia turn as white as a ghost. "With those delightful things, Voldemort-dono was able to survive losing his body when Lily-dono used blood magic to save her son in 1981. He made several of them and was most likely in the process of transforming that large snake of his into one when the soul fragment lodged itself into Harry-kun's scar. While any of those things exist and their magical bonds to what is left of Voldemort's soul remain intact, he cannot die." _

_"The diary that possessed my sister Ginny in her first year was also one," Percy added. _

_The director of the DMLE staggered on hearing that before she turned to stare in horror at a pale Albus. "So when in Merlin's name were YOU going to tell us about all this?!" _

_"Amelia…you must understand…!" _

_"Do you truly believe the people in this land are complete_ fools_, Albus?" _

_He stopped, turning to stare wide-eyed at Tsukiko. Before he could answer her, the Dark Lady of the Orient smirked. "I will strongly wager now that you planned to make Harry-kun sacrifice himself at the business end of Voldemort-dono's wand, hoping that he might ultimately survive it because of that soul fragment in his scar." As Albus winced on hearing that — which spoke volumes to Tsukiko — she then nodded to Rose. "That's why I had Rose-chan use a soulsword on it since that works better…and even more so, allowed the magical link between that horcrux and Voldemort-dono to be severed, thus terminating what mental connection existed between him and Harry-kun." _

_"That's why Riddle was in pain when Rose did that!" Percy concluded. "He suffered from soulsword backlash!" _

_"And — once I teach Big Brother how to make a soulsword — he could use it to cut all the links between the Dark Dorkbrain and his little horcruxi," Rose finished. "Once that's done, one more soulsword strike to the berk and he's gone. Even if we miss a horcrux, the soul fragment inside will be BURNED every time those links are cut thanks to soulsword backlash. If any of the Dark Moron's friends try what they did back last spring with a horcrux after it went through THAT…well, they won't get much." _

_Tsukiko nodded. "Which certainly will work far better than whatever 'power' Harry-kun supposedly has that will allow him to vanquish Voldemort-dono once and for…" _

_A knock echoed from the door. "Enter!" Amelia called out. _

_The door opened to reveal Cornelius' secretary. "Lord Potter is here, Madame Bones," she said, not blinking twice on seeing the Dark Lady of the Orient standing there. _

_"Send him in," the director of the DMLE bade. _

_The secretary ducked out. Harry Potter then walked in, dressed in formal robes with the crests of both the Houses of Potter and Black on his cape. He smiled as Rose got up to kiss his cheek before nodding politely to Percy. "Had a chance to talk to your parents yet?" he asked as he offered his hand to the older man. _

_"I talked to Father," Percy stated as he shook Harry's hand. "He'll explain it to Mother. Unfortunately, given the mess in this place…" _

_"Well, maybe I can help there," Harry stated. "Since my sister can't sit as my proxy for the House of Black given her being a Meridiana alumnus, Madame Bones, I've asked Madame Andromeda Tonks to serve as voting proxy for the time being. Now that I understand it, I certainly agree to that law about not allowing people to hold multiple seats, especially at my level." _

_Amelia nodded as Albus staggered up. Glares from Rose and Tsukiko kept him silent; it was obvious to them — and Percy, too — that the headmaster was NOT pleased at the fact that Harry had gone and claimed his inheritance at Gringotts. That had also seen him emancipated, thus free of any influence by any magical guardian the Ministry could assign to watch over the Boy-Who-Lived; as a normal-raised child, such guardianship fell automatically on Albus Dumbledore in his capacity as headmaster of Hogwarts. _

_"I'm glad you agree to that, My Lord," Amelia stated. "I hope that when Susan comes of age, I'll be able to hand over the reigns of my family to her as she is the proper heir, as does Dowager Augusta Longbottom concerning Neville." She then took a deep breath before bowing. "My Lord, I must also apologize for all our failure…" _

_"Aunt Amelia, save it," Harry bade, which made her blush on hearing him call her "aunt." "None of you — thanks very much to_ Mister _Dumbledore and his mad mania for controlling every aspect of my life because of that prophecy that my godfather gave up his life for to keep free from Riddle's hands — could probably do a thing even if you did know the truth. It wouldn't surprise me that_ Mister _Dumbledore has been fast and loose with memory charms to make sure those who DID try were stopped in their tracks." _

_"Now, Harry…!"_

KLONK!

_Another kettlebell — this one with_ **200T** _on its side — slammed down on Albus' head, knocking him out. "You do that very well, Magi Potter," Amelia stated. _

_"Well, the old dork's giving me so many chances to practice, Aunt Amelia!" Rose said, which made Amelia and Percy both laugh. "So, what do we do now?" _

_"Well, I've got the paperwork for my assuming my family seats," Harry noted. "Since it's too late to go to today's meeting of the Wizengamot, I'll hold off on introducing articles of impeachment on_ Mister _Fudge until next week. Oh, just in case Dolores Um-bitch comes back to try to cause trouble for Sally-Anne Perks, Aunt Amelia, I discussed this with Madame Marchbanks. Sally-Anne will sit her OWLs before the end of July. After all, her soul-bond was with another magical; where Libera went to school has no bearing on that matter. Besides, before that stupid law was passed in 1705 to block the magi of Meridiana from doing anything with the Ministry, pactios were formed between the magi of that school and wizards and witches of Hogwarts all the time." _

_Amelia nodded; her niece — not to mention everyone from Hufflepuff who had been in the school at the time — had howled with outrage about what happened to Sally-Anne Perks at the hands of Dolores Umbridge. "What about Dolores destroying Sally-Anne's wand?" _

_"It was a fake wand Percy's brothers Fred and George supplied for the occasion," Harry stated. "Libera supplied a special portkey to get Sally-Anne's things out of the castle before they could be destroyed, plus another portkey to make sure Sally-Anne could get out of Hogwarts before she was obliviated and had her magic bound…not that such would have worked because of the soul-bond. And thanks to some tricks Fred and George loaned Sally-Anne, Um-bitch spent a little time in the Hospital Wing after she tried to bind her magic. After she recovered, she sent Obliviators over to Ross-on-Wye to bind Sally-Anne's magic and memory-wipe her and and her parents. Unfortunately, they hit special anti-apparition wards set up around the town by Libera's sister Juno; those saw them teleported into Gonebren to give the Hollows something to chew on." As Amelia gasped in horror and Percy blinked in surprise, he scratched his chin. "I think they're still there…" _

_"No, Big Brother. All of them had the Dark Dork's mark on their arms, so Juno asked the Hollows nicely to let them be dumped off Land's End," Rose supplied. _

_"Do you have names?" Amelia demanded. _

_Rose handed her a rolled sheet of parchment. Amelia opened it to scan what was there, then she snarled. "If you'll all excuse me, I need to speak to Chief Radford." _

_With that, she headed out. The others watched her go, then Harry sighed. "Well, she never asked about the Key of Gonebren," he commented as he gazed on the others. _

_"Not surprising," Tsukiko breathed out. "Gonebren is something that hasn't haunted the collective conscience of this society for three centuries, Harry-kun. It's the dark kami that lurks at the edge of your awareness. You know it's there, but you don't think about it unless it's thrust right into your face." _

_"Would the Queen go_ that _far, Lady Tsukiko?" Percy wondered. _

_A light smile crossed the older woman's face. "Percy-dono, your Sovereign has endured a lot since she succeeded her father to the Throne of the Pendragon forty-four years ago when it comes to you wand magicals within Her Realm," she stated. "She believes — and passionately so — in the Separation Act since it's done more good than harm in the long term, even after the basic concept of magic became accepted to most normals in the 1920s thanks to the Steel Angels. But there have just been too many people in your land who've felt themselves kings of the world once they learn magic, then went forth to do all sorts of unspeakable things to innocent people who — if they were approached kindly and peacefully — would accept the existence of magic without complaint." _

_"'Mione and all the other normal-borns had parents who accepted it," Harry noted. _

_"True, but they're special cases. Look at your own uncle and aunt, Harry-kun." _

_He grimaced as a stormy look crossed Rose's face; if Vernon or Petunia Dursley were in front of her right now, their lives would be in mortal danger. "So the best thing to do is just keep pressing at it until people get the hint," Percy noted. _

_"Yeah," Harry breathed out. "That might take a while…"_

* * *

Harry Potter's prediction proved quite prophetic.

The summer of 1996 saw a return to the dark days of the late 1970s, which the Death Eaters — howling like rabid dogs at the bloody nose that had been delivered to them at the Department of Mysteries — struck out to take down potentially dangerous people who could lead the Ministry of Magic in a campaign to defeat them. Tragically, one of those killed was Amelia Bones…who would be slain at Voldemort's own hand days after her meeting with the just-ennobled Marquess of Taunton Deane and Grimmauld, his sister and his new teacher at the Ministry headquarters. With the strongest and most competent voice for resistance gone, the leadership of the magical government was eventually passed on to Rufus Scrimgeour, then-Chief Auror of Britain. A man who seemed quite determined to stand up to the Death Eaters — which impressed Harry enough that he voted for him when the impeachment of Cornelius Fudge was passed — the native of Surrey soon proved to be an even worse disappointment than his predecessor.

With Cornelius Fudge, Harry later lamented, at least one _**knew**_ at first glance how incompetent he was.

Or — as Harry's sister would muse in that same conversation — as the Americans would say, Rufus Scrimgeour could talk the talk…but he definitely could NOT walk the walk!

As the Boy-Who-Lived worked himself to the bone to prepare for war against the Dark Lord, the casualties kept mounting. Atop Susan Bones becoming the new Baroness of Bute because of her aunt's murder, Daphne Greengrass' parents Cyrus and Chloe died in mid-fall, ennobling her as the Countess of Mutuantonis. Soon after that, Hannah Abbott's mother Rebecca was slain, making her the new Baroness of Camden. Ernie MacMillan's parents Lewis and Anna were killed after the turn of the New Year in 1997, making him the Baron of Rosyth. Other people attending school and allying themselves with the Boy-Who-Lived lost loved ones in very much the same way, both parents — as was in the case of people like Lisa Turpin's father and mother David and Tasha and Wayne Hopkins' parents Gabriel and Dorothy — and elder siblings. Even those relatives that had just come into people's lives weren't spared; Nymphadora Tonks' parents Ted and Andromeda — the latter serving as the voting proxy for Harry in the Wizengamot because she was born a Black — would be killed by the Carrow siblings in the late spring of 1997.

But no matter what the Death Eaters did to try to force Harry's allies to abandon him, the backs of people like Susan, Daphne, Hannah, Ernie, Lisa and Wayne just stiffened more as they elected to turn the heat up on Voldemort's people inside Hogwarts itself. Those who had been marked such as Charlie Vaisey were especially vulnerable to attacks by Harry and his allies. Liberal applications of the _Morsmordre Crucio_ on such people became practically the order of the day by the start of the New Year. Try as Albus Dumbledore — who was horrified to see that Harry and all his friends in the Defence Association were developing a lethal killing edge to their spell-work that Yomigawa Tsukiko's constant and intensive training was delivering them, augmented with wandless skills taught to them by Nekane Springfield — might to bring peace to his school, the violence kept on escalating until the marked Death Eaters within the school were driven out of Hogwarts by the time of the spring Hogsmeade weekend in early May, either fearful for their lives or in a constant state of post-Cruciatus shock.

Voldemort had anticipated this eventuality. While the Dark Lord was more than grateful for the new generation of supporters he had gained thanks to the recruiting efforts of Draco Malfoy during that year, he knew that having Harry Potter train under Yomigawa Tsukiko would make the Boy-Who-Lived a formidable foe if given the chance. And while he had hoped some of his marked followers in school might get a lucky shot in to take down some of Harry's allies, he knew that defence training had been gutted out thanks to the curse he had placed on the position of DADA professor years before; such left those NOT being in the D.A. at a terrible disadvantage. So he had Draco Malfoy — who remained unmarked, as did his friends Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, not to mention Theodore Nott — arrange to construct a vanishing cabinet in the Room of Requirement to allow same to form a warp tunnel to Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley, thus bypassing Hogwarts' wards and allowing the Death Eaters to storm the castle. To ensure all would go well, another raid on Azkaban in late April saw those who had been imprisoned by the Ministry in the wake of the previous spring's defeat at the Department of Mysteries freed, thus seeing the ranks of Voldemort's experienced fighters reinforced.

While that particular attack had been a surprise to Harry and his allies, they had anticipated something like that happening. Sensor wards had been laid out throughout the castle, which would chime immediately if people possessing the Dark Mark (save for Severus Snape) or were cursed with lycanthropy (save for Remus Lupin) appeared in large masses all at once. Such finally happened in the immediate wake of a futile attempt by Albus and Harry — with Rose accompanying them — to locate one of Voldemort's horcruxi in a cave on the English channel coast in East Sussex. Discovering that the horcrux — a locket once possessed by Salazar Slytherin itself — was a fake, the party soon discovered a note inside it, signed by a mysterious "R.A.B."…

* * *

_West of Eastbourne in East Sussex, Saturday 14 June 1997, before dusk… _

_"That's Regulus Black!" _

_Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter gazed wide-eyed on the latter's sister. "How did you know of Regulus, Rose?" the weakened headmaster gasped. _

_"I remember seeing his name on the Black family tapestry when Big Brother used his new power as the head of the House of Black to update all the names!" Rose Potter asserted as she gazed on the older man, a mixture of respect and annoyance on her face; no matter what Albus had done to Harry over the years, it was obvious to Harry's sister that the dying arch-mage still cared deeply for the younger man. "Regulus Arcturus Black! His name always stuck in my mind…!" _

_"Because of Kreacher!" Harry chided. "You took a shine to the old guy the instant you moved into Grimmauld, Rose!" He then blinked. "Wait a minute…" _

_He turned to gaze on the note just extracted from the locket taken from the cave opening onto a small beach bordering the English Channel:_

To the Dark Lord,  
I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.  
R.A.B.

_"He probably took it — or HAD it taken — to a place he thought would be totally safe from Voldemort!" Harry hissed as he held up the fake locket to gaze intently at it for a moment before spitting out in self-disgust. "Damn it! I KNEW I saw something like this!" To Albus. "When the Order took over Grimmauld Place, we did a massive clean-up of all the dark things that were there! A locket similar to this one…" — he shook the fake locket in his hand — "…was in the garbage pile! I then remembered Kreacher getting that locket out and taking it somewhere private!_ **KREACHER!**_"_

Pop! _"Master Harry, what…AAAAH!" _

_All three turned to see a wide-eyed Kreacher — who looked a lot younger than he had appeared when the members of the Order of the Phoenix had moved into the Black family townhouse in Islington two years ago; he was also dressed in formal robes with the crest of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld over his heart — gaze in fright at a place he NEVER wanted to come to again, especially in the wake of the death of his beloved Master Regulus. And while there were now tongues of magical flame leaping out of that hideous place, the memories of the awful events in the late fall of 1979 were still too fresh and too painful to cast away. Before he could flee back to the hidden townhouse in Islington, Rose placed comforting hands on the elderly house elf's shoulders. "Kreacher, it's alright," she soothed as he blinked, his body slightly glowing as a small portion of the Meridiana alumnus' own magic flooded him. Straightening himself, he turned to gaze upon his new master's wonderful crystal-blood sister given new life years ago by that delightful angel of the stars now living in Manchester, free of her cruel and evil masters. "We know what happened to Master Regulus." _

_Kreacher blinked before his eyes teared. "Kreacher failed…!" _

_"You didn't fail, Kreacher…" Albus breathed out. "You just didn't understand the sheer level of madness that Voldemort succumbed to when he perverted the ancient and benign gift of the_ nŏksbae _into an evil monstrosity. Please — for Regulus' sake most of all — tell us: Do you still have the locket he gave up his life for?" _

_The house elf blinked before snapping his finger. In a flash of light, a silver locket with emerald jewels shaped in an "S" appeared on the rock next to where Albus was now sitting as he recovered what little magic he had left after using Fiendfyre inside the cave to burn the inferi left to guard this particular jewel and the soul-fragment contained within. Harry raised his right hand to point at it. "_**SPIRITUS EXAMINO!**_" _

_A bolt of white light struck the locket, making it glow brightly to Harry's mage sight. On seeing that, Rose grimaced. "That's the same aura I saw in your scar, Big Brother!" _

_"A horcrux!" Albus breathed out. "Now, all we have to do…" _

_"We destroy it now." _

_The headmaster nodded. "Yes…we have to get to the Chamber…" _

_"No!" the Boy-Who-Lived snapped. "No time! We hurt Voldemort NOW, Professor! We know there'll probably be a move on Hogwarts soon with you gone from it!" _

_"Harry! Please! I know the risks! But we need…!" _

_"A soulsword." _

_Silence. _

_More silence. _

_Still more silence. _

_And then… _

_"Oh, Harry…why?" a pale Albus sobbed as his blue eyes teared. "Is that…?!" _

_"Professor…" the younger man breathed out. "It's not because of what you always kept from me before Sirius died! It's not because I WANT to do this! It's because I HAVE to do this! Prophecy forced me to be Voldemort's executioner! Fine! I don't like it but I accept it! When I felt the scar burned out of me by Rose last spring, I knew I found the way to do it with as minimal cost in lives as possible!" _

_"But a_ **soulsword**_, Harry…?!" the old arch-mage moaned. "Do you have any idea at all what it takes to make such a thing?! It's worse than a killing curse!" _

_"Then why didn't Tsukiko-sensei or her friends eventually go insane by using soulswords in the War of Liberation, Professor?" Harry countered. "None of them did! Because — even if using a soulsword normally means someone will die — they all did something before the invasion of Vietnam in '39 to make them realize the TRUTH of what they were doing! Even you yourself realized it after the war when you were sent by the ICW to Tenmon-jinja to demand Sensei confess to war crimes!" He shook his head. "Why didn't you do it, Professor? Why didn't you touch the Tsūshō when Sensei wanted to make you see why she fought?!" _

_Albus gaped as the blood drained from his face, a cloak of grief for the lost innocence of this young man then flooding his weary soul as he realized how far Tsukiko had gone to prepare her new apprentice to engage in all-out war against Voldemort. Oh, dear God, he KNEW about the Crystal of Suffering! An object that was a living reflection of the pain of_ millions _from across Africa and Asia, enslaved by those who saw themselves as "better," not caring of the native cultures and native forms of magic that had been practised by magicals from Indonesia to India and from Sudan to Rhodesia for many generations across thousands of years before the Europeans came with their "civilized" forms of spell craft. Even if he had not physically touched the Tsūshō the day Tsukiko showed him that device within the oratory of Tenmon-jinja overlooking Nagasaki in 1946, he couldn't help but FEEL the waves of unending agony that had been carefully copied into the dark meson jewel forged from particles within Tsukiko's blood…which had sealed a blood oath upon the soul of the magical samurai from Kyūshū to avenge such suffering and ensure it never would haunt future generations. _

_And when he — still believing that he was in the right despite the howls from across the planet saying how wrong he was, those protests moving to fatally cripple an already weakened International Confederation of Wizards…thus allowing a new International Conference of Magical Communities to rise in its place — moved to destroy such an accursed thing with the Elder Wand he had won from his former lover months before on the fields of Nurmengard, the Dark Lady of the Orient calmly asked this: _

_"_Why do you seek to destroy the _truth_, Albus-kun…and keep perpetuating _**pain**_?_" _

_On hearing that calm question, the Defeater of Grindelwald gazed intently into the onyx black orbs of the last Mahō-Shōgun of Japan…and realized that no matter what he said, no matter what he did, it would all be for nought in the long term. _

_His mission to avenge the wrecking of the ICW had been a failure from the start. _

_Those liberated by his host would NEVER submit to European control again… _

_…and they would, to their dying breath, NEVER allow the woman who freed them all to suffer for simply doing what she believed was the right thing in the end. _

_Even if Gellert Grindelwald had been struck down… _

_…Yomigawa Tsukiko, his closest ally, had achieved an incredible triumph. _

_Albus then shuddered as he remembered words Gellert has said to him months before: _

_"_You stopped me, Albus_," the last Reichsmagieminister of Germany had stated with a content smile that summer evening at Nurmengard as he was prepared to face trial in Geneva by the American battle mages under the command of the extraordinary Mollie Bean, the curiously-rejuvenated veteran of the Civil War who had kept watch over the Rail-Splitter's campaign during the Score and Four against the daywalker vampires that had provoked that horrid fratricidal conflict in the United States during the early 1860s. "_But the real battle was never here in Europe. It was in Asia…and by extension Africa. The Americans realized it. The Soviets realized it. Deny it all you wish, but that which you vowed to fight for is _**dying**_. My girls all struck the death blows in London and Paris and elsewhere…and even if I cannot help create the Greater Good for all of humanity, it will come. And humanity will be whole once more._" _

_He then was jolted by Tsukiko's next words: _

_"_You can keep denying the truth…but you know deep down what the truth is_," she said. "_And mark my words, Albus. Your people's arrogance — now that they are denied the chance to force their 'superior' culture on others — will make them turn inward and rip and burn away at their own culture, one born thanks to four incredible people who built a school that united all across Britain centuries before the United Kingdom came into being. I know this from talking to those of your former students who flocked to Gellert's banner when he raised it years ago._" She shook her head, weariness appearing on her face…which forced Albus to remember that despite her looking like an Oriental beauty in the prime of life, Tsukiko was actually six years his senior. "_The day will come that you will try — because, no matter what Dean-san attempted to do to prepare you to overcome Gellert, a man you once loved deeply, you _**never**_ could understand what the warrior's code demands — to impose your worldview on an apprentice at a time when your society hangs on the precipice of total destruction. You will have to ask yourself at that time one question:

_"_Was the cost to preserve a _lie_ worth it in the end…?

_"_…and will that apprentice — because you denied that such a choice was needed — be _**forced**_ make the choice you couldn't force yourself to make?_" _

_The ancient headmaster blinked as his heart seemed to chill as he looked upon the calm face of the son of James and Lily Potter. And there it was. The sad weariness that had been on Yomigawa Tsukiko's face fifty-one years before when she — with just mere words — forced him to open his eyes to the true nature of what his people in Britain and their neighbours on the Continent had unleashed across the planet for centuries. What was worse, despite his efforts after that failed mission to Japan — in Hogwarts and in the Ministry of Magic — to make people see that racial hatred and supporting violence against those who were not "pure" was NOT the path to use to live a happy life, it had ultimately been for nought. A dark lord worse than Gellert Grindelwald had risen in part because Albus hadn't taken precautions when his common sense warned him trouble could arise thanks to Thomas Marvolo Riddle… _

_…and now, James' and Lily's son had been forced to make a choice. _

_A choice forced on him thanks to Quirinus Quirrell, burned to ashes at his hands to save the Philosopher's Stone from the grasp of the bodiless Voldemort… _

_A choice forced on him when he faced down a thousand-year basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets to save a girl he barely knew, said beast driven on by one of Voldemort's horcruxi… _

_A choice forced on him when — in his failure to keep the true betrayer of his parents captive when he had the chance to make sure his godfather could be part of his life — a dark and horrid ritual was used to give Voldemort his own body back, with innocent Cedric Diggory becoming the first casualty of the Second Purification War… _

_A choice forced on him when he learned of all the secrets that had been kept from him — out of a simple desire to stay the dark hand of Destiny from falling on his still-young shoulders — that cost him his godfather…and gained him his sister… _

_…and the chance to learn from someone who understood_ **war**_. _

_There was no choice now. _

_There had never been a choice. _

_It was time to pass on the baton. _

_"May you succeed where I failed, Harry," the Defeater of Grindelwald conceded. "I pray it doesn't consume you as it did Gellert and Tom." _

_The young man who would soon be called the Man-Who-Won nodded. "Rose, Kreacher, move him to safety," he said as his magic and ki coalesced in his hand. _

_"_**ANIMAE GLADIUM!**_" _

_Seconds later, the howling wail of a dying soul fragment echoed over East Sussex… _

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) This part and the next part of the story is a special interlude that will allow me to better explain the whole history behind the **Hollows** of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren…not to mention a general overview of what was called the "Second Purification War" or "Voldemort's Second War" — though more popularly known as **Death Eater Season** — that occurred in the summer of 1997.

2) Translations: **Kendō** — Literally "the way of the sword," this is the Japanese swordsmanship martial art; **Iaidō** — Literally "the way of mental presence and immediate reaction," this is a martial art that teaches practitioners the smooth, controlled movements of drawing the sword from its scabbard, striking or cutting an opponent, removing blood from the blade, then replacing the sword in the scabbard…which, before the 1930s, was called **Battōjutsu** ("art of drawing the sword") as fans of _Rurōni Kenshin_ might recognize; **Aikidō** — Literally "the way of unifying with life energy," this is the Japanese grappling form of martial art that teaches practitioners how to defend themselves…while ensuring they do NOT harm their opponents; **T'ae Kwon-do** — Literally "the way of the foot and the hand," this is the popular Korean martial art that combines sport and exercise with combat and self-defence techniques; **Tàijíquán** — Literally "supreme ultimate fist," this is the famous Chinese internal martial art form that emphasizes both defensive combat techniques and the maintenance of good health; **Land of the Wa** — Poetic name for **Japan**; **Nebula Hypnotica** — Mist of Sleep (a spell from _Negima_); **Spiritus Examino** — Spiritual Examination.

3) The names of the military geniuses noted in the first flashback scene:

**Sūn Wǔ** (traditional birth and death dates 544-496 B.C.E.) — known more commonly by the Wade-Giles Romanization of the term "Master Sūn," **Sun Tzu** (spelt in Pīnyīn format as **Sūnzǐ**) — was a Chinese military general who was reported to have lived during the **Spring and Autumn Period** (771-476 B.C.E.). He is traditionally credited as the author of the legendary treatise _The Art of War_ (known normally in Chinese as _Sūnzǐ Bīngfǎ_ or "Master Sūn's Military Rules"), an extremely influential ancient Chinese book on strategy that influences military thinking to this day.

**George Smith Patton Jr.** (1885-1945) — for those who don't know the man often nicknamed "Old Blood and Guts" or saw the 1970 film _Patton_ starring George C. Scott in the title role — was the legendary commander of the **Third United States Army** from shortly after D-Day in the summer of 1944 to the end of World War Two in Europe almost a year later. A brash, outspoken and sometimes undisciplined romantic who believed that he had been resurrected time and time again to fight wars, he also led the American forces in the invasion of North Africa in 1942 and the invasion of Sicily a year later. He is perhaps the most successful field army commander in American history.

**Hans von Dach** (1927-2003) was a Swiss military theorist. He was the author of the seminal treatise on guerrilla warfare, _Total Resistance_, that was published in seven volumes in 1957. Here, von Dach — who was scorned by his fellow Swiss Army officers because of his radical idea of actually going AGAINST the standard rules of warfare; this resulted in his never being promoted beyond the rank of major from 1963 to his retirement in 1988 — and tossing aside the Cold War-influenced strategy the Swiss military leadership advocated in the defence of their nation against possible invasion from outside powers, especially if the Warsaw Pact overran NATO in World War Three.

**Josip Broz Tito** (1892-1980) was the famous Yugoslav Partisan leader that led a brutal guerrilla war against the Nazis during the Second World War in the "Yugoslav Theatre" between 1941-45. The actions of his troops detained thousands of German troops that might have proven more useful elsewhere. Because of that, he became the effective dictator of Yugoslavia from the time his country was liberated by the Red Army to his death thirty-five years later. Tito was also the first world leader to break away from siding either with the West or the East — he was a Communist — and, by doing so, created a "Third World" collection of nations not bound to either Washington or Moscow.

**Jan Christiaan Smuts** (1870-1950) was a white South African commando leader during the Second Boer War (1899-1902) for the state of **Transvaal** in an unsuccessful resistance against British domination of the southern part of Africa. However, after peace was made and the Union of South Africa was formed, Smuts worked to make it a self-sustaining and self-governing dominion of the Commonwealth. He served as Prime Minister for two terms (1919-24 and 1939-48) and was a soldier serving as a leader of South African troops fighting alongside the British Army in both World Wars, eventually reaching the honorary rank of lieutenant general by the end of the Great War and field marshal at the end of the Second World War.

**Emiliano Zapata Salazar** (1879-1919) was a prominent leader of the Mexican Revolution from 1910-20, fighting to overthrow the autocratic government that had ruled that country for thirty-five years prior. A revered figure in his homeland to this very day, he led rebels — nicknamed _Zapatistas_ and formally known as the **Ejército Libertador del Sur** ("Liberation Army of the South") — to force land reform and allow the poor to have better control over their lives. Sadly, Zapata would be tricked into attending a peace conference with his opposite number; on his arrival at the place where the meeting was to happen, his car was riddled by bullets.

**Võ Nguyên Giáp** (1911-2013) was a freedom fighter who fought against the French moving to take back control of his homeland in the First Indochina War (1946-54) and later against the Americans and their allies during the Vietnam War (1960-75). He was the genius behind engagements like the battle of **Ðiện Biên Phủ** (13 March-7 May 1954) that broke the back of the French…and the **Tết Offensive** launched on the Vietnamese New Year (30 January 1968) that caught the Americans and the South Vietnamese totally off-guard. He also led the final offensive that conquered South Vietnam in 1975. He retired from active duty in 1991 at the rank of general.

4) _Harry Potter_ character and location notes notes:

**Michelle Truman** is my own creation. However, her brother **Gabriel Truman** was a Hufflepuff prefect who might have been one of the unnamed characters in the _LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4_ video game and was mentioned in Pottermore. He got into trouble with a Ravenclaw prefect concerning which house the classical arithmancy mistress **Bridget Wenlock** (1202-86) — mentioned in video games based on the first three novels — was as a student; to confirm, Madame Wenlock **_was_** a badger.

The exact location of the village of **Tinworth** was never stated in the _Harry Potter_ novels, save for the fact that it was on the seashore in Cornwall.

The **Circle of Justice** appeared in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_ in the scene where Vanessa Zabini's would-be lover **Melvin Kneen** — there, I called him "Martin" — was tried for his torturing both his family and normal girls in hopes of creating a magical biological weapon to destroy all the normals. The **Curse of Maha** was also introduced in that story; I based this concept on the character of **Maya** from the 1994 Pink Pineapple adult five episode OVA series _Inma Yōjo_ (known in English as "The Erotic Temptress") and how her very existence caused others around her to die.

The name I gave to the **Bloody Baron** here — **Ælfweard Cerdic** — is my creation. It was also used in _TI&tPS_. There, he was greeted as such by **Hirosaki Chikage** (from _Sister Princess_) when the Hogwarts ghosts all descended on the foyer next to the Great Hall before the Sorting.

**Marcus Belby** was first introduced in _Half-Blood Prince_. He is the nephew of the man who created the **Wolfsbane Potion** that helps lycanthropes endure the full moon transformations while keeping their human mind in control over the wolf's body, **Damocles Belby** (the famly name is, of course, based on Marcus' family name).

**Maxine O'Flaherty** was a character from the video game _Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup_, released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Windows and XBox formats. I used her in _TI&tPS_. In that, I put her a year ahead of Harry Potter's class.

The note written by **Regulus Black** to Voldemort as found in the fake locket horcrux is directly quoted from _Half-Blood Prince_. As an aside, the location of the cave where **Salazar Slytherin's Locket** was placed by the Dark Lord was never given in _HBP_; the location given here is my invention, first used in _TI&tPS_.

5) A **First Officer** in the **Woman's Royal Canadian Naval Service** (**WRCNS**, nicknamed the "Wrens" as members of their British sister service were also called) — the Royal Canadian Navy's women's division during and after World War Two — is the equivalent of a lieutenant commander in the regular Navy (NATO rank code OF-3).

6) **The Barony of Rosyth** (Ernie MacMillan) is named after the Scottish seaport village and former naval dockyard located on the Firth of Forth across from Edinburgh; its name in Scots Gaelic is _Ros Fhìobh_. The Rosyth Dockyard was first opened in 1909 thanks to the build-up to World War One and was turned over to civilian control in 1987.


	7. Interlude: The Hollows (Part 2)

While it hadn't wrecked Voldemort, the destruction of the locket horcrux HAD hurt.

That had been apparent an hour later, when the Death Eaters and their allies poured out of the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts — driven there by a shrieking Dark Lord as he tried to fight off SOMETHING that burned him from within the core of his battered soul — and found themselves caught in a free-fire zone.

Voldemort's followers had four things at their side when they went on their raids:

A willingness to employ fear and surprise.

A lack of control concerning the Unforgivables.

An arrogant belief that their targets were weak.

And an unshakable faith in their master's power.

In the First Purification War — when most in wizarding Britain, dulled by the lack of discipline at Hogwarts and twenty-five years of peace, couldn't bring themselves to use their numbers against the rebels seeking to destroy or conquer them — that had been enough to drive the Ministry of Magic to its knees before a one in a million chance in the fall of 1981 saw the Dark Lord struck down at the hands of a _**mudblood**_!

Despite the ugly surprises at the Department of Mysteries, the Death Eaters believed that they could push it against their foes and get the same results.

The Battle of the Astronomy Tower — in latter years, sometimes called the "First Battle of Hogwarts" — in the late evening of 14 June 1997 gave them a rude wake-up call when they ran headlong into the Defence Association, who had spent nearly TEN MONTHS preparing for this very day.

To the stunned shock of people like Bellatrix Lestrange, the "icky babies" who had spat on the Dark Lord were too willing — and too CAPABLE! — of unleashing the Unforgivables in all three categories…but had smartly circumvented the moral and legal issues by targeting the DARK MARK itself! Doing that STILL overwhelmed, burned and killed their targets thanks to the link between the Mark and the life-force of the one bearing the Mark…which saw DOZENS of fighters — both experienced veterans of the First War and green recruits — dropped like wheat before a scythe.

Not even the force of lycanthropes who had come to Hogwarts under the command of the feared Fenrir Greyback survived the evening intact; while the hardened werewolf that turned Remus Lupin years ago into one succeeded in infecting many students with the dreaded affliction, dozens more of his pack found themselves literally burned to death by the Cote Argentea hex…or slashed to ribbons with the Sectumsempra curse.

While the primary goal of the Death Eaters' mission that evening — to see Albus Dumbledore slain in hopes of disheartening the wizarding "sheep" in Britain — had been carried out thanks to Severus Snape, the butcher's bill had been high.

Voldemort — after he had recovered from the SECOND time a soulsword had been employed to destroy one of his horcruxi, which he was still magically linked to despite the clean breaks in his soul each time he split it to ensure his immortality…though he had no real idea what had exactly happened to him in spite of the crippling agony that had driven him to his knees — knew that he had to hit fast and hard to keep people from taking a chance to collect themselves, think the situation out, then move to mount a successful counterattack.

That led to the murder of Rufus Scrimgeour over two weeks after the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, which allowed Voldemort's hidden allies in the Ministry — with help from Pius Thicknesse, who had been subjected to the Imperius Curse and the use of mood-altering potions thanks to Peter Yaxley, a Death Eater who had been told to keep his head down until the time was right — to seize control, declare an "emergency" to impose martial law, then start to eliminate the mudbloods and blood traitors who would immediately try to rally against them. It could have worked…

…hadn't a certain meeting happened the day after Rufus' death at the west end of the Mall in the City of Westminster…

* * *

_Buckingham Palace, Tuesday 1 July 1997, early morning… _

_"I must confess, Lady Tsukiko, you outdid yourself with your latest student." _

_Yomigawa Tsukiko smiled as she gazed with pride at Harry Potter, who — even if he had taken his fair share of lives over two weeks ago at Hogwarts — was still a teenager at heart; the flustered look on his face because he was standing in the presence of the Queen was simply priceless! "Yes, he was quite eager to learn once he was given the chance to truly learn. As were his friends, both those who came with him today to visit Your Majesty…and those out there who are ready to answer his call to arms." _

_Hearing that, the elderly monarch slowly nodded. "So it is war." _

_"Yes, Your Majesty. It's war," Hermione Granger, now standing to Harry's right, said. "Undersecretary Weasley, before we came here, reported that dozens of normal-borns and those who support their right to have and practice magic have already been kidnapped and removed to Azkaban Island in hopes of breaking resistance against the arch-traitor Riddle and his allies. He's collecting names now, but we think our very good friend Luna Lovegood is one of them. As the daughter of Master Xenophilius Lovegood, the publisher of the_ Quibbler_, her incarceration would silence the free press from speaking out against the 'pure order' that_ Mister _Thicknesse proclaimed last night when news of the death of Minister Scrimgeour got out over the Wireless." _

_Hearing that, the Queen nodded. "I see. Your plans, Lord Potter?" _

_"Hit them hard, hit them fast and keep on hitting them until they bear their throats and submit, Your Majesty," Harry calmly declared. "But to do that, we need your help." _

_"How so?" _

_"A Royal Proclamation issued by Your Majesty declaring a state of rebellion against the Crown and the peace and good order of Your Realm," he answered. "With that, the magic of the Crown and the loyalty clauses our ancestors swore unto the Crown in the Separation Act — as accepted by King William and Queen Mary in their Magical Royal Proclamation of 1692 that made the Act magical law and the cornerstone of the Magical Constitution of Your Realm — will force even those people who would_ **never** _contemplate hurting another person to make use of the Unforgivables on the Dark Mark. That's what the Death Eaters DON'T want. They want sheep and cattle that could be led to a slaughterhouse. They can't fight a society of people galvanized by patriotism and loyalty unto Your Majesty to become a pack of wolves. The odds are simply too great." _

_"I would recommend two more Royal Proclamations, Your Majesty," Hermione added. _

_"They are, Miss Granger?" _

_"One: Forever break all Ministry control over Hogwarts. Force the Board of Governors and the teachers in the school to swear on their magic to do all to better the cause of Hogwarts and what it is supposed to teach over any political agenda. This will ensure that the games played in our fifth year by Regent Lady Umbridge will never happen again," she answered. "Two: Declare that all treaties between Your Ministry of Magic — as signed in the name of the Crown — and all magical and normal authorities across Earth are to be considered suspended for the duration of the current emergency. That will make the arch-traitor Riddle's allies in Mister Thicknesse's government quite scared of outside intervention, especially from any alumnus of Meridiana like Harry's sister Rose." _

_"That would completely wreck any hopes of keeping resistance contained within Your Realm, Your Majesty," Tsukiko advised. "Riddle-san and his friends feel themselves in the right in this case. Any rebellion against them has to be stopped from involving outside powers; that's always been the ugly paradox of civil wars as the American Revolutionary War proved. By declaring a free-fire zone in Britain for outsiders to come in and help deal with Riddle-san and his friends, it forces the rebels against Your Crown to fight a war on two fronts." _

_"Which has NEVER worked," the Queen finished with a nod before she gazed on the woman standing now to Harry's left. "And what of you, Miss Mun? It strikes me odd that you're here. Unlike others of Lord Potter's allies who've been at his side for a long time, you haven't been mentioned at all." _

_"That was intentional, Your Majesty," Mun Aesup declared. She was classically Korean in looks, with silky black hair styled in a bob at mid-neck and almost black eyes under reading glasses. She seemed the atypical nerd…until you looked deep into her eyes to see the inventive madness shining within. "As one descent of old Chosŏn, I already face prejudice because of the colour of my skin and the shape of my face." As the Queen scowled on hearing that, Aesup grinned. "But the fools who see themselves as 'better' than their peers always dismissed me as a potential threat. After all, I was only one person, not even affiliated with Harry's group when that monster Umbridge started to run amok at Hogwarts two years ago. That gave me the chance to watch them, guess their strengths and weaknesses, then plan accordingly. I approached Harry during the school term just ended to offer my services — and my inventions — to aid him in his just war against those who would seek to burn this ancient land to the bedrock." _

_"I see. So what have you created?" _

_"The one thing that the Schwarze Mädchen never used: A_ **mesonium bomb**_." _

_Hermione turned stark-white. "_**WHAT?!**_" she shrieked as she gaped wide-eyed at her sister Gryffindor. "Are you INSANE, Aesup?! Using THAT is…!" _

_"I'd use it against the Dementors." _

_Silence. _

_More silence. _

_Still more silence. _

_And then… _

_"You propose to totally destroy Azkaban," the Queen concluded. _

_Aesup nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty." _

_"Explain your reasoning, please." _

_"One: It removes the only prison Riddle has under his control to stow away those who would stand against him. Without it, those his people do capture have much greater chances to escape and — when combined with Your Proclamations that 'Mione proposed just now — will make it simply impossible for Riddle to establish his 'pure order' with the whole COUNTRY rising up in arms against him. That makes what Harry has to do in the end a simple mopping-up exercise. I believe we could have it done by the end of August," Aesup explained. "Two: It destroys the ward stone on Azkaban Island that allows dementors to be created. With that gone, the souls of the dark wizards that were transformed by that stone into dementors will be released to pass into whatever awaits them in the next life. And with the physical destruction of Azkaban and the total eradication of the dementors, Riddle loses his two most precious ace cards in this game of poker for the future of Your Realm and all who live in it, metahuman and normal alike. As for whatever magical beings also ally with him, taking them down will be easy." _

_"What do we do with OUR prisoners then?" Hermione asked. "Much that I did take down some of Riddle's people two weeks ago, Aesup, I'm not comfortable doing that all the time. Not all of Riddle's people are marked; look what Sally-Anne and her wife discovered when those 'Snatchers' tried to kidnap her at Umbridge's order yesterday." _

_Hearing that, the Queen nodded. "Then let me give you this…" _

_She walked over to her desk to pick up a simple gold skeleton key. On the sovereign touching it, the magicals in the room all gasped as they felt an aura of raw, ancient power flood the room from that simple device. Seeing their wide-eyed looks, the Queen smiled. "This is the Key to Our Prison at Gonebren in Cornwall," she declared, making Harry and his house-mates stiffen on sensing the echo of the magic of the Crown in their host's voice. "We had hoped to avoid bringing this into play, but the foul murder of Our Minister for Magic by this so-called 'dark lord' cannot and WILL NOT be tolerated by Us. You have Our Royal Warrant, Marquess Harold of Taunton Deane and Grimmauld. Make use of Our Servants at Gonebren in whatever way you see fit to put this rebellion against Our Crown, Our Realm and Magic Itself down as swiftly as possible. _

_"You have two months to do this. _

_"Fail…and the Separation Act is no more. _

_"And We will recommend to Our Friends worldwide that the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy be ABOLISHED once and for all time." _

_Much to the Queen's personal delight, none of her guests reacted to such a threat…which to any normal wizard, would be a sign that a new Dark Age of Magic — the term for the horrid period instigated by the Protestant Reformation at the end of the Fifteenth Century that saw rhabdophobia become rampant among the normals across Europe — was coming. _

_But the people visiting the Palace now… _

_Harry bowed deeply. "It is as You Command, Majesty." _

_The Queen held out the Key. Harry cupped his hands to allow his sovereign to place the Key into his palms…and then he gasped as the wild, burning power of the Maze Amongst the Rocks flooded his body from head to toe. After what seemed a brief eternity, that power seemed to focus on the memories of his touching the Crystal of Suffering shortly after the start of his last school year in September…which made the mass consciences of the Hollows pause for a second before they realized that for truly the FIRST time in their existence, they would be guided by a magical who UNDERSTOOD what the Hollows themselves had endured in their mortal lives. A magical, raised amongst the normals of the land, who had been subjected to horrid psychological abuse in his childhood ultimately because of his magic…yet had never stopped believing in the inner goodness of all he met, even those who antagonized him once he discovered the truth of his magic and had gone to that ancient castle in the Highlands of Scotland to learn how to use his gift. _

_Even the one who had wronged Harold James Potter the most had not earned his hatred. _

_It was the EVIL that Thomas Marvolo Riddle had unleashed that the new Holder of the Key of Gonebren hated and wished to see destroyed once and for all time._

**«We'll be there for you, Harry.»**

_Aesup and Hermione gasped as white smoke poured from the key to billow on the floor before Harry, rising up to form two ghostly figures, a man and a woman appearing to be about his age. Gazing at them, he gaped before stunned recognition crossed his face. "Dennis Bishop…Amy Benson…" he breathed out before chuckling as he recalled what he had learned about Voldemort's past. "Of course. You were normals…"_

**«Who were wronged by Tom before he understood what he was,»** _the spirit of Amy Benson replied with a smile._ **«You could have been so much like Tom, Harry…» **

**«But Tommy-Wommy never knew the truth of his parents until Professor Dumbledore came to the orphanage to tell him he was magical,»** _Dennis Bishop added as he wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulder, making Hermione and Aesup laugh on hearing that rhyming nickname for Voldemort._ **«Since he was born the day his mother died — and his father never knew that he had a son — there was no basis of hope in Tom to learn love. YOU, Harry, had your childhood memories of two wonderful people who loved you dearly.» **

**«And even if you nearly forgot it save for when your wonderful mother was struck down by my grandson, your heart remembered…and that kept you free of the ultimate darkness that haunts people's souls, young man,»** _a new voice said as the ghostly images before Harry changed to reveal a much older couple. _

_"Mister Riddle…?" Harry gasped on recognizing the similarity between the teenage version of Voldemort he encountered in the Chamber of Secrets and the ghost before him._

**«Yes,»** _Thomas John Riddle — the father to Thomas Albert Riddle and the grandfather to Thomas Marvolo Riddle — stated as he wrapped a warm arm around the shoulder of his beloved wife._ **«Even if I didn't understand until the day I slipped from the mortal coil and found myself in the moors of Gonebren, I know now what happened when a grandchild born of my son from a daughter-in-law we didn't realize was magical came to my house one day.» **

**«He acted out of ignorance…but the spell that Headmaster Slytherin used to make us what we are now doesn't acknowledge that,»** _Mary Riddle added._ **«As much as the power of Gonebren — bonded to the blood of Slytherin — will never acknowledge the man now calling himself 'Voldemort' as the true heir to the family line.»**

_"'The power he knows not.'" _

_Eyes locked on Hermione. "What are you thinking of, Hermione-chan?" Tsukiko bade. _

_"The part of the prophecy that started this whole mess, Sensei," Hermione explained before gazing on the Queen. "Professor Dumbledore believed it was Harry's willingness to love and sacrifice himself for those he loved. In that, he was partially correct." To Tsukiko. "We trained under you believing that the 'power he knows not' was Harry's willingness — as it evolved after Sirius died and Harry united with Rose — to take the fight to Riddle and his allies in a way they themselves could not defend against." She then gazed on the two Hollows. "But the real 'power he knows not' — and the power he will NEVER have! — is the family magic given to Tom Riddle through his mother ultimately from Master Salazar himself." _

_"Most likely because he was born of_ **rape**_," Aesup finished. "If Merope Gaunt HAD won your son's love properly, Mister Riddle, and bore your grandchild in marriage that was both legal and proper in the eyes of Magic, your grandson would have been able to claim the magic of his mother's ancestors — including the magic of Gonebren…which might have compelled him to become a servant of the Crown — and help him become something more than he is now."_

**«And that, my dear Aesup, is how you will not only defeat Riddle…but BREAK him.»**

_The Queen's eyes went wide. "Winston! How on Earth…?!" _

_A delighted cackle came from the spirit of a famous prime minister as he turned to bow deeply to his Sovereign._ **«I was not affected as much by Headmaster Slytherin's spells as Mister Riddle and his family, much less young Master Bishop and young Miss Benson, Your Majesty,»** _Winston Spencer Churchill stated._ **«I was 'drafted' by the simple fact that Your Father's Minister for Magic at the time of the London Blitz LIED to me when he proposed to go after the normal relatives of the Black Maidens who came from Britain as a way of forcing them to betray their master. He promised me that they would be treated humanely. Being burned alive in their own houses — as their spirits confessed to me eventually — was NOT what I would call being treated 'humanely.' When I learned the truth — via a letter delivered to my office at Number Ten by young Master Staff Sergeant Margareta Hecht herself in fact; this was just after she launched her raid into the Ministry of Magic to free the magical colonials, then nailed Fenwick and his lot to crosses — I never felt as betrayed by those who see themselves 'better' than those who live in Your Realm as I did then.»** _He then gazed on Harry._ **«You must make it a total victory, young Harry. Beat them…and BREAK them! Show this monster Voldemort what he could NEVER have. Do it in front of all his allies…and you forever will shatter the heart and spirit of the pureblood traditionalists who have run rampant over the Realm and over the Crown's former colonies beyond this land once and for all time.»**

_He then faded from view, leaving only those still alive within the Audience Room. Harry took a moment to absorb that, then he nodded. "With Your Leave, Majesty?" _

_The Queen nodded. "Go, Marquess Harold. Do Our Bidding." She then lightly smiled. "And come out of it alive and safe, Harry. Do it…but live through it. _

_"Because if you fall, I will ensure the_ **War Hawks** _finish it off." _

_Harry bowed his head…_

* * *

Two days later, "Death Eater Season" was declared "open."

To the shock of Voldemort's people, the morning of Thursday 3 July 1997 revealed that a "Magic is Might" statue that had replaced the Fountain of Magical Brethren in the Atrium on Level Eight of the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic had itself been replaced by statues showing all the magical beings living in Britain standing as equals beside each other, all ready to use their magic and power to protect a fountain…from which an obelisk emblazoned with _**La Reine Le Veult**_ on all sides rose. Attempts by the Aurors to wreck this horrid "Fountain of All Equals" failed; none of them realized that their magic would _not_ allow them to assault anything marked with the Norman phrase "The Queen Wills It"…which harkened back to the Preamble of the Separation Act itself and the eternal vow of loyalty made by the Wizard's Council to the Crown in the persons of King William III and Queen Mary II for themselves, all the magicals in Britain alive at the time…

…and all their future progeny unto Eternity.

When Minister for Magic Pius Thicknesse — accompanied by the Chairwoman of the Muggleborn Registration Commission Dolores Umbridge, Muggleborn Registration Commission Chief Investigator Albert Runcorn, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Peter Yaxley and Chief of the Auror Office Thorfinn Rowle — came to the Atrium to gaze upon the Fountain, they were met by a team of Snatchers who had seized a group of normal-borns for eventual transport to Azkaban. As the possessed Pius tried to explain the "good" part of being brought to the Ministry, a voice then bellowed out the four words that every Death Eater alive had come to fear above all else:

"**_POTENTIO MULTIPLO MORSMORDRE CRUCIO!_**"

Yaxley and Rowle — not to mention two of the Snatchers and ALL the twenty-three other marked Death Eaters in the Ministry complex — were dropped to the floors as their bodies blazed with agony, worlds worse than anything their master had done. As Umbridge, Runcorn and the other Snatchers watched in stunned horror on seeing the Dark Lord's chosen warriors rendered totally helpless, Thicknesse collapsed to the floor in a daze, the Imperius Curse put on him by Yaxley shattered by the Cruciatus being used on the man who had stolen weeks of the former chief auror's life for a cause he NEVER would have supported.

Then, the sharp sound of a heavy metal key striking flagstone echoed through the Atrium.

That was followed by a statement that sent chills down everyone's backs:

"**_TO THE TRAITORS TO MAGIC…GONEBREN, 'A' BLOCK!_**"

Screams of howling vengeance echoed through the chamber as the Snatchers — not to mention those of their allies elsewhere in the Ministry complex — were all seized by a legion of glowing spirits that rose from the very floors to drag them down…and whisk them away to Cornwall and the living hell within Bodmin Moor. As the captive normal-borns watched in wide-eyed amazement as those who had taken them prisoner for the "crime" of "stealing magic" were dragged off to the Maze Amongst the Rocks, a slowly-recovering Pius Thicknesse yanked out his wand and unleashed the Sword-Slashing Curse on Runcorn and Umbridge, dropping them to their knees. Surging up, the former Chief Auror moved to level his wand at the former High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, the words of the Killing Curse appearing on his lips as he prepared to extinguish the disgusting woman's life. He was stopped at the last moment by Reginald Cattermole — whose wife Mary had been seized by the Snatchers — who reported that the _Daily Prophet_ and the Wizarding Wireless Network had both been seized by families loyal to the Crown and a Magical Royal Proclamation had been issued by the Queen declaring a state of rebellion now existed between the Crown and the forces of Voldemort. On hearing that, Thicknesse — who was now being looked over by one of the former normal-born captives, retired Royal Army Medical Corps Major Hamilton St. John, a veteran of World War Two and a senior healer at St. Mungo's — gaped as his mind caught up to what had been declared after the Death Eaters were hit with the massed Cruciatus. Horrified that _**Gonebren**_ had been reopened — which ONLY could happen if the Crown ordered it — he then jolted on sensing a wave of powerful magic flood the whole of the Ministry complex from somewhere to the north-northeast. Then, an invisibility cloak was tossed off a pair of people at one end of the Atrium, revealing Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. As people cheered the Boy-Who-Lived and his best female friend — save for the bleeding Umbridge and Runcorn, not to mention the moaning Yaxley, Rolwe and the two Snatchers who had been marked — he allowed a glowing skeletal key the size of a sword to appear from behind him. Giving them all a chance to sense the ancient magic of the Maze Amongst the Rocks, he smirked.

"_Defy the Crown…and you feed the_ **Hollows**_._"

His smirk didn't fade as he added, "_Oh, by the way, Azkaban was just destroyed by a meson bomb. All the Dementors in existence have been wiped out._"

Stunned silence…then a wild scream of joy escaped all the people in the Atrium. At that moment, Albert Runcorn — who, as a former Auror, was more capable of operating wounded than most normal people thanks to training he had received from Alastor Moody in much more innocent days — lunged up to strike Harry down…only to find that the Boy-Who-Lived was much faster with the huge key in his hand.

As a dazed Umbridge watched in horror, Runcorn was sent off to Gonebren, screaming for mercy…just as Yaxley tried to level his wand on the mudblood that had helped the half-blood brat defeat his master time and time again. Hermione gazed on him with a strange calm — as if dealing with a Death Eater was now no different than crushing a bug — and with a simple wave of her hand, raised the black flag against Voldemort:

"_Morsmordre Avada Kedavra_!"

As he dropped dead, a horrified silence fell as people took a moment to absorb what they just watched…then Mary Cattermole lunged for the wand that had been seized by one of the Snatchers that had just been whisked off to Gonebren, levelling it at Rowle and calling out the Killing Curse against the Dark Mark. That was like a gunshot starting a foot race; all the other former captives — save Hamilton St. John, who was a healer and wouldn't think of doing such a thing — snared their wands and finished off the two marked Snatchers before they raced off to other parts of the Ministry to wipe out all the other "traitors to the Crown" who were "polluting Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic" with their "staleblood, inbred filth." As Umbridge — who had seen and heard it all — screamed all sorts of obscenities at the "mudbloods" who dared "defy their betters," Thicknesse gazed on her…before a cruel smile crossed his face.

"_Since Azkaban was just destroyed and the Dementors exterminated, we'll have to send you off to Gonebren to make sure you learn your TRUE place in this world, Dolores. Do have a nice time there. Now, Lord Potter, if you may, do your duty._"

And with a touch of the Key, a howling Dolores Umbridge was sent to Gonebren…

* * *

By the end of the day, all of wizarding Britain was in a total uproar.

The news of Azkaban's destruction and the Dementors' extermination unleashed wild cheers among everyone in the land save Voldemort himself…whose plans had been dependant on the support of the empathic soul-wraiths to ensure those who would defy him could either be killed via the Kiss or kept imprisoned while more vital work to make his cause succeed was done. Without the Dementors — and without Azkaban! — how would he bring Potter to heel if he couldn't kidnap and imprison the mudbloods and blood traitors who sided with the brat?!

Then came the news of the "Ministry Massacre"…and it was stunning:

Twenty-seven marked followers of the "Arch-Traitor Riddle" slain.

Pius Thicknesse — freed from the Imperius Curse forced on him by Peter Yaxley and now heading to St. Mungo's for long term recovery from the use of soul-warping potions to make him more compliant to Voldemort's desires — had resigned his post effective immediately; in his statement, he declared, "_I do not possess the favour of the Crown, so I cannot logically be Her Majesty's Minister for Magic._" To Voldemort's stunned shock, Chief Investigative Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt — a member of the Order of the Phoenix — was declared interim Minister until the Wizengamot convened and confirmed him properly.

The Taboo set to detect usage of Tom Riddle's chosen battle name was eliminated…but with the Ministry headquarters once more beyond the Dark Lord's control, the Snatchers couldn't employ it to track down "undesirables." To say anything of no place to _imprison_ them!

The Trace used to detect underage magical use was deactivated for the duration of the emergency. What was worse, a blanket authorization to use all the Unforgivables on the Dark Marks was granted to all adult wizards, making it open hunting season on Voldemort's followers.

All treaties the Ministry of Magic had with the International Conference of Magical Communities and with all magical and normal governments were declared suspended. Anyone from outside wizarding Britain who wanted to help deal with the "traitors to the Crown" were welcome to come join the party.

At the order of the Crown, all lords of the Wizengamot who had joined Voldemort — or were suspected of allying with the Dark Lord despite their not being marked — had their titles stripped and their seats in the chamber put under threat from the Praeda Bellica to ensure that none could use any form of voting proxy to keep pressing their cause.

In concurrence with that, Chief Director Ragnok of Gringotts — who, days earlier, had been driven to tears when Harry Potter publicly returned the Sword of Gryffindor in apology for the grief wizards had caused goblins over the centuries — declared that all vaults owned or claimed by servants or allies of the "half-blood bastard child Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort" were now sealed off from all access…and that anyone who DARED try to defy the goblins would be publicly beheaded on the spot and their assets absorbed into Gringotts for distribution to victims of the actions of wizards who rebelled against the Crown under the clauses of the appropriate treaties between Gringotts and Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic.

And the worst thing of all…

…there came the news that Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren had been reopened for business.

When Lee Jordan — just rescued from Azkaban by Mun Aesup and her family — interviewed Hermione Granger for the Wizarding Wireless Network two days after the Ministry Massacre about what would happen to people like Dolores Umbridge while in the Maze Amongst the Rocks, the normal-born from West Sussex said, "_Lee, the belief that the Hollows hate ALL wizards in a lie. What the Hollows hate are wizards who — for one reason or another — used their magic or provoked the use of magic against those who had no defence against it; that's why they were so effective against delinquent wizards in ways the Dementors NEVER were. Believe it or not, all the relatives of the British members of the Schwarze Mädchen — who were massacred at Minister Fenwick's order during Grindelwald's War! — are Hollows now. So is Voldemort's father, not to mention the senior Tom Riddle's parents and two of Voldemort's primary school classmates from his time at Wool's Orphanage in London. All of them are waiting to teach those who will soon fill Gonebren all the lessons they_ **never** _learned about their_ responsibilities _when it comes to the gift of Magic bestowed onto us. If they truly repent in their hearts, the Hollows will go easy on them. That's why the prisoners of war from the Magische Reichsarmee who accepted what they did wrong were able to recover from their time in Gonebren within ten years of their release in 1946._" Here, Hermione paused before she added, "_But I strongly doubt ANY of the_ leicheblut schweinhunde _imprisoned in Gonebren now will repent…so they'll wind up being empty husks when they're released from the prison, fit only to become fish food off Land's End, just like we did with all the Death Eaters we executed in the Ministry._"

To Voldemort and his allies, _**that**_ was the most horrible thing of all…

* * *

As July marched on, rumours began flying all across Britain about Death Eaters and their allies in the Snatchers and among the werewolves and other dark creatures _**disappearing**_ from sight. Despite the Wizarding Wireless Network, the _Daily Prophet_, the regional magical daily newspapers and magazines like the _Quibbler_ dutifully reporting all the times that normals, normal-borns and pro-normal wizards and witches were killed by "suspected traitors to the Crown," no explanation as to what happened to the casualties from the _other_ side was made by the Ministry of Magic. Attempts by pureblood traditionalists who had not allied with Voldemort — yet were all smart enough to foresee that with the mass disappearances of purebloods fighting for the Dark Lord, their very economic and political power base in wizarding Britain was under dire threat — to demand an accounting from Kingsley Shacklebolt were silenced when a threat to give THEM a taste of the Hollows sent them retreating in disorder to their family homes.

Then came the Battle of Rhosan Green and the Chalcot Wood Massacre.

In the former incident, Sally-Anne Perks — joined by her wife Libera Meretrice and the other Meridiana alumni from the once-lost village of Rhosan Green at the north end of the Forest of Dean — swept down like avenging angels on a Snatcher camp near Libera's home village, which was holding some Hogwarts students who hadn't got clear of Voldemort's people, then disabled the captors and bound them up. Then — as witnessed by a wide-eyed Rita Skeeter, who had used her animagus abilities to try to learn what was really going on — the forester's daughter from Ross-on-Wye whispered the dreaded name of _**That Place**_…which allowed a company's worth of Hollows to emerge from the ground to drag the Snatchers off to Cornwall. After that, Libera gazed to where Rita was hiding, declaring loudly that the mechanisms behind the Taboo had been modified and linked to Gonebren; all one had to do was say the name and the Hollows would come take the "rubbish" away.

What happened in the latter incident in the small forest near Birmingham was even worse for Voldemort: Seven Death Eaters — including Augustus Rookwood, one of the Dark Lord's inner circle of advisers and a former Unspeakable — were slain by Harry Potter. However, the news of such deaths initially came when surviving relatives — and the general public through articles published in the _Prophet_ — received the automatic death notices from Gringotts. Even more, twenty-six Snatchers — including their overall leader, Nicholas Scabior — were whisked off to Gonebren to entertain the Hollows. And worst of all, the Boy-Who-Lived was reported by Diana Matthews — whose eldest son Charles had been disowned by the family for taking Voldemort's mark and betraying all his family had long stood for; he had been killed at Chalcot Wood — to be wearing the white magical samurai armour used by Yomigawa Tsukiko during the War of Liberation. Even more so, the Boy-Who-Lived was also riding the beautiful nightmare Kenchū and welding the meson katana Senkō in his righteous campaign to destroy Voldemort; it was on the edge of THAT deadly blade that Rookwood had been killed. The other Death Eaters had died via soulsword.

Inwardly scared that Dumbledore's "golden boy" was no longer playing nice, the Dark Lord desperately launched attacks against all the family homes of Harry Potter's closest friends. And while most attacks wound up with more Death Eaters and their allies captured and sent off to Gonebren — the desire for blood vengeance seen at Chalcot Wood having bled itself off from Harry and his friends — Voldemort's people got lucky with Pansy Parkinson's parents Malcolm and Gruoch at the start of August; with their deaths, Pansy's older brother Michael became the new Earl of Keerford. Along the way, some Death Eaters found themselves betrayed by their own kin. Amycus and Alecto Carrow got the chance to learn how that felt thanks to the former's twin daughters Hestia and Flora shortly after Pansy's parents died. Once the elder Carrow twins were subdued, the younger twins invited Harry Potter and Nymphadora Tonks — now married to Remus Lupin — over to deal with them. Once they were telepathically probed by Rose Potter for all information about Voldemort and what he was planning, Amycus and Alecto were beheaded by Harry, thus allowing Flora to become the new Baroness of Norwich; Hestia wanted nothing to do with the Wizengamot.

A raid at Malfoy Manor was then mounted right afterwards to keep Voldemort and his troops off-balance. It also allowed the Ministry Six to free Octavius Ollivander — who had disappeared partway through the 1996-97 school year — and several other captives held there by Lucius Malfoy and his friends…one of which was Griphook, the goblin that had escorted Harry to his trust vault in his first visit to Gringotts all the way back in 1991. During that attack, one of Harry's closest friends took a cutting curse meant for the Boy-Who-Lived fired by Bellatrix Lestrange, despite the fact that he was protected thanks to the magical armour he wore: Dobby, the former Malfoy house elf who had been freed by the "Great Harry Potter" after the Chamber of Secrets incident in 1993 and had bonded with him in the wake of the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. Dobby's body was borne to 12 Grimmauld Place where he was interred in the garden, his grave dug by Harry…with the surprising help of Dudley Dursley, who had relocated himself to Islington from Little Whinging at the urging of Dobby and his mate Winky; neither of Dudley's parents — who, despite Petunia's past knowledge of wizarding Britain, refused to accept anything the "freaks" said about the potential danger Voldemort presented — had come with him, choosing to remain at 4 Privet Drive. There, a meeting was held…

* * *

_Islington in London, 12 Grimmauld Place, Tuesday 12 August 1997, late afternoon… _

_"I'm sorry about Dobby, Harry. He was such a damned sweet guy…" _

_Harry chuckled as he patted his cousin's comforting hand. "Thanks, Duds. What's this about you getting a girlfriend that Winky told me about?" _

_The once-fat — and now quite muscular — amateur boxer who was now in the top ten of his class at the Smeltings Academy in Gloucester blushed before he reached into his pocket to draw out his wallet. A picture was handed over. "Eleanor Dresden. She's actually from Number Nine, but she goes to St. Trinian's School for Girls up in Cambridge." As Harry, Hermione and a few others in the room gasped on hearing that the new lady in Dudley's life was a student at the most infamous girl's public school in all of the United Kingdom, he smirked. "Mum and Dad hated it when they found out where Eleanor went to school, but they couldn't do a damned thing to stop it, especially after Piers got expelled from Smeltings for drug use and it got out all over town." _

_"You walked away from it, Dudley-kun," Yomigawa Tsukiko — who had based herself at Grimmauld as she monitored Harry's actions — stated. The Ministry Six, Harry's sister and her friends from Meridiana, other members of the Defence Association, Sally-Anne Perks and Libera Meretrice, all of the Weasley clan, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minerva McGonagall, Alastor Moody and other members of the Order of the Phoenix were seated or standing around the living room as they relaxed and enjoyed tea and coffee served by Kreacher and Winky. "Be proud of yourself. Hopefully, your friend's experience will teach him the necessary lessons he'll need to better live his life." _

_"Yeah, like what I got when some things came two years ago to try to_ **kill** _me…and I couldn't even SEE the damned things!" Dudley stated before he gazed on Mun Aesup. "You really used an_ atomic bomb _to blow up the damned island where they lived?!" _

_"A_ **mesonium** _bomb, Dudley," the Korean-Briton would-be technomage stated. "Same general design as the Little Boy bomb used on Hiroshima in 1945 — with no offence, Sŏnsaeng-nim…" _

_"None taken, Aesup-a," Tsukiko — who nearly was killed by the Fat Man bomb being dropped on Nagasaki three days after the Hiroshima attack — said with a light smile. _

_"A gun-type weapon," Hermione stated. "Mesonium bullet — I assume hyper-charged with magic — fired into a mesonium target core of an equal or denser format, also hyper-charged with magic. Works brilliantly." _

_"So where was this Azkaban place anyway?" Dudley asked. _

_"Just east of the Shetlands," Percy Weasley provided. "The explanation the Home Office arranged with us to provide to the public was that there was an explosion of a large underground field of natural propane triggered by a localized earthquake. Even if we're far from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, they do happen here in Britain." _

_"Rare but not totally unknown," Aesup affirmed with a nod. _

_"Once we get this all done, Kingsley, we HAVE to find ways to make better explanations when it comes to magical accidents than gas main eruptions and terrorist attacks," Hermione then warned. "People aren't as stupid as some would think." _

_"And there are those close-circuit television cameras now being used by the local authorities all around the country," Arthur Weasley added. _

_"I'll remember that," Kingsley noted. _

_"So what now?" Luna Lovegood asked. "Any news from Professor Snape?" _

_"Riddle is getting really desperate," Minerva reported; given the casualties that had been inflicted on the inner circle around Voldemort, Severus Snape was being kept on a very tight leash by his "master." "The most effective fighters within his inner group now left are Raven's father and Cassiopeia's parents; everyone else is less experienced or — in the case of people like Peter Pettigrew — simply can't handle such a violent change of tactics from what Albus pursued in the 1970s. The Snatchers are still out there, as are Greyback and his pack, but both groups have lost heavily thanks to the Hollows. The vampires have withdrawn; I think your public threat of calling on the Rail-Splitter to 'make them behave' scared them, Harry. There are still the giants, but Hagrid and Olympe report that the magical frost giants of Greenland — with the sasquatches and yeti helping out — will move in on Golgomath's group soon enough. As for trolls and anything else Riddle has, it won't matter in the long run." _

_"Target practice," a sullen Pansy Parkinson breathed out. _

_Sympathetic looks came her way. "So what now?" Fred Weasley asked. "Like it or not, we've got nineteen days before the Queen's Warrant to Harry runs out and we can kiss the Separation Act bye-bye, not to mention brace for the War Hawks coming in to deal with it. We have to settle Riddle's hash before then." _

_"We know that there are three horcruxi left," Alastor Moody grumbled. "We know what all three are: The Cup of Hufflepuff, the Diadem of Ravenclaw and Riddle's damned snake Nagini. We know where two of them are: Nagini's with Riddle and the Cup is in the Lestrange vault in Gringotts. We don't know where the Diadem is." _

_"Can we get the Cup at least?" Susan Bones asked. _

_"Impossible," Harry reported. "Griphook volunteered to ask Ragnok about it when he went off to Gringotts, but thanks to Bill and Fleur…" — he nodded to Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, who had planned to get married this summer before events got out of everyone's control — "…I know that unless either of Cassi's parents go into Gringotts to get the thing out of there so we can get our hands on it, there's no way we can touch it. Treaties and banker-client privileges get in the way, especially since I don't think either of Cassi's parents realize the truth of what that cup really is." _

_"But it's forbidden to store horcruxi at Gringotts, Harry!" Hannah Abbott stated. "The goblins would have every damned right in the world to get rid of the thing!" _

_"Not when the client doesn't know what it is, Hannah," Bill warned. "If the client DID know — and refused to tell Gringotts about it — that's one thing. But given how hard it was for Sirius' late brother — Merlin bless the man! — to figure it all out, I really doubt that Bellatrix or her husband know what Riddle turned the Cup into." _

_"Thank you, William," the portrait of Walburga Black — now hanging on the wall dividing the living room from the central foyer — said with a beaming smile. _

_He nodded politely in turn. "What about the Praeda Bellica?" Daphne Greengrass asked. "Have Cassi strike down her parents, declare the Praeda Bellica and claim the family wealth." _

_"Treaty of Ynys Môn would get in the way," Hermione warned. "And I doubt even those traditionalists who didn't side with Riddle would want to change that." _

_"Guys, we're going about it the wrong way." _

_Eyes locked on Sally-Anne. "What do you mean, Sally?" Hannah asked. _

_The tomboyish blonde smirked. "You heard what happened in the Department of Mysteries, didn't you? When Rose used the soulsword on Harry's scar, Riddle suffered for it. He also — as Professor Snape reported — suffered when Harry destroyed the horcrux in that locket Kreacher kept an eye on all these years." As Kreacher — standing close to his master — perked on hearing his name spoken by the very nice mudblood who had soul-bonded with the beautiful Lady Meretrice, Sally-Anne smirked. "We know now that Riddle had to have mixed some elements of the_ nŏksbae _process when he created his little trinkets since Professor Slughorn didn't give him the whole story about creating horcruxi. Logically, there's a magical link and a soul link between all of them and with the one who created them; what happened to Riddle thanks to Rose and Harry proves it." _

_"What are you saying, lass?" Alastor asked. _

_"What we need to do is sever all the links to the core soul, Professor. To Riddle himself!" Sally-Anne stated. "That means Harry — since prophecy forced this on his shoulders — has to get up close to Riddle and nail him with a soulsword." _

_"What if Riddle's figured it out by now and he's on guard?" Pansy warned. "He may be the most insane man alive because he mangled his soul up so much, but he's bloody brilliant atop that." _

_"Unless we hit him all at once." _

_Eyes locked on Rose Potter, who had a calculating smile on her face…_

* * *

The beginnings of the planning for the second Battle of Hogwarts began that day.

Thanks to Horace Slughorn — who, after learning of the events at the Department of Mysteries in 1996, had been quick to understand what the real meaning of Rose's use of a soulsword on her brother was; that was what made him accept Albus Dumbledore's offer to return to teaching — the location of the Diadem of Ravenclaw was obtained from a guilt-ridden Grey Lady: Tom Riddle had hid Rowena Ravenclaw's most prized invention in the _**Room of Requirement**_ of all places! And while it would have been simplicity itself to go to Hogwarts and destroy it, Pansy's warning about Voldemort finally catching onto what his enemies were doing put caution into the air. Eventually, Harry decided that it was time to employ an old Red Army tactic taught to him by Svetlána Múromeca — temporarily freed from her imprisonment in Russia's version of Azkaban during the summer of 1996 to help Tsukiko train Harry — and create a _fire sack_ for the Death Eaters to waltz into so they could ALL be swept up by the Hollows for imprisonment at Gonebren without any hope of escape to fight anew.

Remembering what the ghost of Winston Churchill had advised him at the start of July, Harry decided that the best way to break the back of the pureblood traditionalist movement was to have the Hollows seize all of Voldemort's fighters and hold them fast on the grounds of Hogwarts while he himself would personally cut the Dark Lord down with a soulsword after using the long-distance ki beam version of that ultimate weapon — the Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light attack — to shred what magical and soul links his target had with the Cup of Hufflepuff. To make sure the Dark Lord couldn't defend himself, Harry would have Nagini and the Diadem destroyed just before that happened to put Voldemort into the hurt locker and ensure he couldn't defend himself. To ensure the magical python would be there, he arranged through Severus Snape to recommend that Nagini — thanks to her ability to be stealthy, not to mention poisonous to anyone who attacked her — probe ahead of the Death Eaters and their allies to perform a detailed reconnaissance of Hogwarts to ensure no trap was being laid.

The bait: Seize the Elder Wand from Albus Dumbledore's tomb.

Thanks to Severus reminding Voldemort about the events that led up to the headmaster's death in June, the Dark Lord realized that he had been practically sitting on a major prize all this time. With well-chosen words, Severus dismissed what had happened at the Department of Mysteries between Albus Dumbledore and Yomigawa Tsukiko concerning the soulsword employed on the Deathstick. If _The Tale of the Three Brothers_ was to be literally believed, Death Itself had created the Elder Wand; what power could a mere mortal sorceress — even a frightfully skilled and powerful one like Tsukuyomi — have over it? Atop that, since Tsukiko eschewed wands, she would probably have not cared to claim the Elder Wand herself, thus allowing it to be claimed once more by Albus…and given that Draco Malfoy had disarmed the headmaster the night of the attack on Hogwarts in June, that meant that Lucius' son was the current master of the first of the fabled Deathly Hallows. And if the OTHER rumours were true and that the Elder Wand had been created by _Rittmeister_ Josef von Taserich centuries ago, how was it possible for Yomigawa Tsukiko — who had once been the apprentice of Taserich's immortal "son," Hosan Hirosuke — to overwhelm something created by the Undying Lord?

"_What of the fact that Potter has Senkō, Severus?_" Voldemort asked at a meeting at the Malfoy home outside Carlisle. "_It was blessed by Raeburn herself…_"

Severus dismissed that automatically. All the stories about the meson blade — which had been forged from Tsukuyomi's blood, thus descent from Master Hosan — being blessed by the Protector of All Life was nothing more than _**propaganda**_ needed to ensure the International Confederation of Wizards wouldn't beg for the help from the War Hawks' leader to deal with the Dark Lady of the Orient during the War of Liberation. After all, if such stories WERE true, the ICW leadership then ran the significant risk of turning one of the most powerful beings on the planet against THEM if they displeased her because of their determination to keep the magicals in the colonies enslaved to European control…which they couldn't afford to do given the dual threat of Tsukuyomi and Grindelwald during World War Two, plus a potential follow-up conflict against Svetlána Múromeca and her allies because of their passionate support of Communism, which would have seen the purebloods of Europe totally wiped out as she had done in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Besides — again turning to the issue of Senkō being forged from Tsukuyomi's blood, descent from the meson in the blood of Master Hosan — the need to get hold of the Elder Wand had become all the more paramount. The blade could turn back the Killing Curse from NORMAL wands…but the Deathstick was a whole different type of wand!

Enticed by the idea of finally striking Potter down even if he was armoured up, Voldemort agreed to go ahead. Given that the vanishing cabinet that had been in Borgin and Burkes which allowed the Death Eaters to attack Hogwarts in June was still available and linked to the sister cabinet in the Room of Requirement — it had been relocated to Malfoy Manor at the start of July, ensuring it wasn't destroyed when the magic curio shop in Knockturn Alley was wiped off the map at the start of August — it was decided that an advanced party under the Lestranges and helped by Severus would sneak into Hogwarts to secure the castle ahead of time. Once the detection charms that tripped up the Death Eaters in June were converted to the attackers' use, any attempt by the Defence Association to storm Hogwarts could be successfully blocked. Once all was secure — the attack would be timed to ensure little resistance from the staff at the school — Voldemort would shift his forces to Hogwarts.

Draco Malfoy then offered to get the Elder Wand himself from Dumbledore's tomb…but was waived off by Lucius, who asked Severus to deal with that.

"_It will be waiting for you when you arrive, My Lord_," the potions master vowed.

* * *

D-Day was set for the last Thursday in August.

It would be a time when the Castle of Hogwarts would be next to empty of all staff; it was tradition for the teachers to take a week off before the start of the new school year to relax and refresh themselves before facing the day-to-day task of dealing with hundreds of children for ten months straight. If launched at dusk, the moon phase wouldn't be of help; that night would see Earth's satellite close to the new moon and the full moon that month had been on the eighteenth, a Monday. Fenrir Greyback was more than happy to have his surviving pack mates involved in the fight anyway despite the fact that they wouldn't be at top power. Harry Potter and his friends had ripped apart the pack with immunity and the werewolf leader wanted payback. Voldemort promised to allow the lycanthropes a chance to deal with the Potter brat's damned sister and her friends from Meridiana. "_After all, the removal of ICMC recognition to our society works_ both _ways, old friend_," the Dark Lord noted.

The Death Eaters' advanced party had made its way to Hogwarts from Malfoy Manor around suppertime. Led by Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband Rodolphus, the group was also composed of Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe Jr., Gregory Goyle, Theodore Nott and the surviving Hogwarts students who had taken the Mark that had been driven out of the school in May. As Severus opened the door of the Room to allow everyone out, the older members of the Order of the Phoenix descended on the corridor to deal directly with the attackers. As Draco and his unmarked companions fell back into the Room — the former dragging his godfather in along the way to pay Severus back for the older man taking the Unbreakable Vow the previous summer to ensure Albus Dumbledore died — the spells flew fast and furious between the two sides. Despite Bellatrix and Rodolphus holding their own, many of the others were mowed down like wheat before a scythe…but not without the Order taking casualties in return. In that mêlée, Remus Lupin and several others died, while Nymphadora Lupin was struck down by a sickly curse that would render her comatose…having never warned anyone that she had just discovered she was pregnant with her first child.

The Lestranges and several of the younger Death Eaters lead by Charlie Vaisey scrambled down towards the main academic levels just as the first wave of the Defence Association arrived. Led by Ginny Weasley, they launched their assault with massed Cruciatus Curses on the Dark Marks to incapacitate the Death Eaters…but found themselves attacked in return by Fenrir Greyback's pack of werewolves. As Lavender Brown led a counter-attack using the Coat of Silver hex to incapacitate the lycanthropes, Rodolphus moved to make a nearby column close to Fred and Percy Weasley explode. A shield spell from Harry Potter — who just arrived with the main body of the D.A. — saved the elder of the Weasley twins, then he charged off for the Room of Requirement as most of Greyback's friends fell, bodies scalded by the conjured silver as if they had been dipped in sulphuric acid. As Greyback himself fled from the castle to escape the burning tongues of the evil metal that had killed so many of his pack, Bellatrix grabbed her husband and pulled him towards the Administration Tower. As they fled, Rodolphus sent a parting curse bolt towards Hermione Granger.

Seeing the threat to her friend, Ginny Weasley — who was too magically exhausted to muster a shield charm — leapt over and took it in the heart.

Scrambling to the ground floor, the Lestranges raced for the courtyard to get clear of the academic wing and make their way to the Hogwarts Lake, where they could summon one of the boats used to transport first years from Hogsmeade at the start of every school year, then take it to the island where Dumbledore was buried and get the Elder Wand. They were intercepted by a screaming Molly Weasley — who had just discovered what had happened to her precious daughter — and both Lestranges got a massive dose of the Cruciatus on their Marks from Ginny's mother. Grace Longbottom and Cassiopeia Lestrange then appeared. After barking to Molly to call off the attack, Rodolphus' daughter slammed a soulsword into his left arm to burn the Dark Mark away — which caused his heart to fail thanks to the link the Mark had with its wearer's very magical core — before beheading him with a katana borrowed from Yomigawa Tsukiko's weapons stores for the occasion. Howling with outrage on seeing her husband slain by this monster who claimed to be her daughter, Bellatrix moved to kill Cassiopeia. As Molly hurled one of the more darker Prewett family spells at the witch who had so hurt Ginny, Grace's fingertips landed on the older woman's skull…and exposing her fractured brain to the young magi's inner eye to the Te'a that all like her saw from the time of their Awakening to the day they died.

In a cruel twist of irony, Bellatrix fell victim to the same type of coma curse that she and her husband just placed Molly's daughter and Remus' wife into.

Meanwhile, Greyback was making his way towards the safety of Hogwarts Lake when he found an amused Yomigawa Tsukiko standing in his path. Snarling at the Jap bitch that had been the ultimate cause of so much pain for his pack, the werewolf leader charged…only to have Tsukiko used a knife-hand strike to rip his skull open through his eye sockets before she let go with a bit of her power to fry his brain from the inside.

As this was going on, Lucius Malfoy and Peter Pettigrew — who both had apparated to outside the boundary of Hogwarts, then approached under the cover of invisibility cloaks to keep watch on things and make sure all went well — found themselves caught by the former's daughter Raven. Without preamble, the deposed Marquess of Cumbria — who still ached from the wound delivered by this monster in the Department of Mysteries unto him a year before — fired a storm of attack spells at her. To his shock and surprise, Raven seemed to VANISH…but had teleported herself to a position right beside him. One brutal thrust with her own katana later and Lucius collapsed to the ground…and then, for good measure, he had his wand hand lopped off before Raven knelt beside him and rabbit-punched him right in the face to break his nose!

Raven then hissed out the Cruciatus Curse to nail the man who had betrayed her best friend's parents and guaranteed Rose Potter would be separated from her beloved elder brother for nearly fifteen years. As Peter tried to flee while fighting off the horrid burning of his nerves through his Dark Mark, Raven lopped off his silver hand with her katana before slashing open his stomach to double him over, then ripped open his throat with another slash. "_Your mother was always ashamed of you, traitor!_" the daughter of the Malfoys of Cumbria snarled as Peter felt his life-blood seep out onto the lawn. "_I made damn sure of that before she passed away just after you were found alive! Die knowing you'll be heading straight to Hell, oath-breaker!_"

At the same time, Harry — after seeing Remus' dead body close to the door to the Room of Requirement — blasted his way into the magical holodeck-like construct with a force-bubble spell, surprising Draco Malfoy and his friends…

…who were then stunned to hear Severus Snape ask, "_What the devil took you so long, Harry?_"

As Harry quipped about stupid dunderheads leaping before they looked, Vince Crabbe — realizing that this whole attack had been a set-up all along and that his former head of house had sold the Dark Lord out — unleashed one of the most horrifying spells he personally knew.

**_Fiendfyre!_**

Watching as the burly Slytherin was consumed by the storm of magical flame to become the only one of the Class of 1991 to die before graduation, Harry and Severus snared Draco, Theo and Greg, then ran like hell to get them all to safety. To contain the inferno ripping the Room of Requirement apart, Harry used another spell he had been taught by Tsukiko the previous fall — the _Ventus Dracone_, the Dragon Wind — to literally snuff the oxygen and magic out of the Room itself. When the fire finally faded, the Room — which had been set in the "Room of Hidden Things" mode — had been gutted to the very stones of the floor, walls and ceiling, leaving nothing behind…not even Vince's body, to say anything of the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw…

* * *

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Thursday 28 August 1997, after dusk… _

_"There you are, lad!" _

_Harry's head snapped over, then he snarled as he marched over to launch a punch right at Alastor Moody's jaw. The retired auror didn't see it in time before stars appeared in his good eye as he was dropped to the ground. As Severus Snape tried not to laugh on seeing the dark wizard hunter laid low like THAT, Harry screamed out, "_**WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WERE YOU STUPID IDIOTS THINKING?! WHO'S IDEA WAS IT TO JUMP THE GUN LIKE THAT AND CHARGE AHEAD WITHOUT ANY BLOODY SUPPORT?!**_" He spun on the other Order of the Phoenix members. "_**WHO'S GOING TO BE THERE FOR DORA'S CHILD WHEN IT'S BORN?! WELL?!**_" _

_Horrified gasps responded from the older people before they turned to stare wide-eyed at the unmoving body of Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, now being cared for by Ariel Goyle. "_Baby…?_" a white-faced Molly Weasley gasped before she collapsed in her husband's arms and sobbed. _

_"Don't be mad, Harry! Please!" Dedalus Diggle stated as Alastor picked himself up, though he didn't lash back at the young man who had dropped him with a punch; the retired auror found himself quite impressed that Harry could do THAT to him. Dedalus and the other survivors of the first attack had stunned looks on their faces; they had NEVER faced such intensive magical combat until now and it had shaken them badly. "Ever since we all…well, you know…!" He then shuddered before grief-stricken moans stole his voice. _

_As he was comforted by Hestia Jones, Harry shook his head. "Give me a butcher's count, people!" he called out as he looked around the courtyard where the members of the Order, the Defence Association and the captured Death Eaters had been gathered to rest and recuperate. _

_"Remus Lupin, Elphias Doge, Sturgis Podmore, Bathsheda Babbling and Charity Burbage are dead," Minerva McGonagall reported. "Both Dora Lupin and Ginny Weasley were hit with the same type of curse from Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband. Filius didn't recognize it, so it must be Lestrange family magic of some sort. Right now, their life auras remind me of the state Neville's parents have been in for so long. What it means for Dora's child, though…" _

_"The life-link's strong, Aunt Minerva," Ariel stated. "If there's constant care, the baby should come to term with no problems and no harm to its magic." She then gazed once more on Dora. "I sure don't want the baby to go through what_ **I** _went through." _

_As the older people breathed out in relief, Harry nodded. "Alright," he said as he tried not to give in to his anguish and outrage over what had happened to everyone, especially Ginny and Dora. Both were alive despite their current comatose state…and while there was the "A" option that could be used if he found unused and non-templated bioroid bodies at one of the three other Niphentaxian observation sites across the United Kingdom in London, Birmingham and Glasgow, he wouldn't try to exploit it unless he knew how to get away with it while NOT provoking an_ **alien invasion** _of all things…! _

_Alien… _

_Damn! _

_He was STILL trying to wrap his head around that…! _

_Who on Earth could he talk to about this…? _

_Shoving that into the back of his head — while the thing about Alice Holmes' late master/father and his native race of humanoid mimics from a three-star system fifty light-years from Earth was a concern, the Niphentaxians' mania for keeping their presence on the planet top secret was something that now worked in the favour of people like Rose and her friends — for the time being, he barked, "_**KREACHER! WINKY!**_"_

Pop! _"Master Harry, are you alright?!" Kreacher called out. _

_"Oh, my…!" Winky gasped as she looked around, her elf-senses picking up the auras of misery and death emanating from all around her. "Master Harry, what…?!" _

_"Never mind!" Harry urged. "Winky, take Ginny to her bedroom at the Burrow. Care for her constantly until her parents come home, alright? Kreacher, take Dora to Grimmauld and give her a guest room. Careful, she's pregnant. Care for her until I get home." _

_Both elves nodded before vanishing with their charges. As Molly sobbed her thanks at Harry for caring for her little baby, he made eye contact with Hermione and Ron. His best friends nodded in understanding, then the three walked over to one corner of the courtyard, as far from the prisoners as they could. "What happened with the Diadem? Did you get it?" Ron quietly asked. _

_"No, Vince destroyed it with Fiendfyre," Harry replied. "I don't know if there was some sort of magical backlash in this case, but there's no way that even a horcrux could survive THAT!" _

_"So it's two down, with one nicely isolated and free from grasp by any of Riddle's idiots once we slam them all into Gonebren. Once Bellatrix recovers from what Mum and Grace did to her, we can make her get her hands on the thing from her family vault in Gringotts to finish it off once and for all," Ron concluded. "That sounds good to me, mate. All you need is to kill that snake and it's just Riddle himself." _

_"I'm no expert on soulswords, but the lack of soulsword backlash via the Diadem might demand both the soulsword AND the spirit-breaker attack at or near the same time on Riddle himself when he shows up," Hermione advised before she whispered the Patronus Charm to send a mental message to Harry's sister and Neville Longbottom, both now on snake-hunting duty with Rubeus Hagrid. _

_A moment later, a fluttering spirit butterfly appeared before them. «Sorry, Big Brother,» Rose Potter's voice echoed from the image. «No sign of Miss Snake.» _

_A spirit-hare then hobbled up to stand close to them. «Harry, much that I hate to interrupt your fun, but a certain Dark Moron and his silly followers are now crossing Hogwarts Lake from the direction of Professor Dumbledore's grave site,» Luna Lovegood reported via her Patronus; the daughter of the owner of the _Quibbler_ was on lookout duty in the Administration Tower. «It appears Mister Who has gone grave-robbing; I can see the Elder Wand in his hand. They should land by the Great Hall in ten minutes.» _

_"Thanks, Luna! Rose, Neville, Hagrid, find that damned snake!" _

_«We're on it, Harry!» Neville replied back through Rose's butterfly Patronus; despite all the training he had received over the previous school year, the newly-ennobled Marquess of Holdenhurst had yet to produce more than a silver mist. _

_With the Dementors gone now… _

_As the patronuses disappeared, Hermione gazed on her friend. "Bring the Hollows here, Harry. It's between you and Riddle now. They'll keep the Death Eaters detained." _

_"Let's finish it, mate," Ron said in agreement. _

_"Alright," Harry breathed before looking over. "Professor McGonagall?!" _

_"Yes, Harry?!" Minerva called back. _

_"Get our guests up to the residence wing!" Harry bade. "I want them to see this!" _

_"See what, Potter?!" one of the surviving junior Death Eaters, John Summers — he had been a Hufflepuff and a seventh year in the school year just ended — heckled. "See you finally die?!" _

_Derisive laughter escaped most of the other prisoners…though neither Draco Malfoy, Theo Nott nor Greg Goyle joined in. Thinking on that, Harry then mused that given that he and Severus just save the three young Slytherins' lives, they were probably wondering how they were going to get out of the Life Debts that now existed between them and the Boy-Who-Lived. _

_"Forget it, Harry! They're gonna be appetizers to the Hollows soon enough!" Ron then called out, making the captives all gargle in horror as Harry drew out a certain skeleton key and allowed it to grow to the size of a sword. "I say let's feed them to our friends in Gonebren now and get it over with!" _

_"No! I want them to_ **watch** _as I dismember that_ **half-blood bastard child freak of magic** _myself!" Harry snarled as his eyes flared, making everyone gargle on seeing that. "Get them up there now, Professor!" he then bade Minerva McGonagall. "I'm going to sic the Hollows on Riddle's idiots! I want them to see what I'll do to Riddle, too! Make sure our guests can't call out to warn them of what's coming!" _

_"Good luck, lad!" Alastor bade. _

_With that, Harry stormed off for a door that lead into the corridor heading out onto the Long Bridge, the longest of the three stone bridges that connected both sides of the castle and the one closest to the Hogwarts Lake. With Hermione and Ron flanking him on both sides, Harry stepped out into open air, then gazed south to see a virtual armada of boats heading their way. "Looks like bloody D-Day at Normandy back in '44!" Hermione hissed out. _

_"And we're the Atlantic Wall," Harry mused as his eyes locked on the pale, bald figure in the lead boat. "Fortunately, we have the War Hawks fighting on our side." _

_"That good?" Ron quipped. _

_The others chuckled. Instantly, spells started lancing out towards the Golden Trio from some of the boats, though the inner wards surrounding the castle itself deflected them off. Harry smirked as he moved to rest the blade of the Key of Gonebren on the flagstone at his feet, not deliberately striking it on the stone to open the gateway to the Maze Amongst the Rocks and let the Hollows storm forth. Looking perfectly relaxed — which, he hoped, would anger the Death Eaters so much at such a casusal display of dismissal towards them, thus make them waste more energy on firing spells and not think this might be a trap — he kept his eyes locked on Voldemort, almost taunting the Dark Lord to lash out at him with the stolen elder wood wand with the thestral tail-hair core now in his hand. However, the older wizard was holding off; no doubt, he wanted to be at point-black range to kill the Boy-Who-Lived. _

_"Let's confirm something," Harry mused. "'Mione, would you mind?" _

_"Of course, Harry._ **MESONIUM REVELIO!**_" _

_A swirling silver-red-black bolt of energy lashed out towards Voldemort from Hermione's right hand. Before the Dark Lord could raise a shield to block it, the bolt slammed into the Elder Wand, causing a mushroom cloud-like effect overhead. As the Death Eaters began bellowing out a storm of curses towards the three students on the bridge for brazenly attacking their leader in such a manner, Harry's closest female friend sighed. "Well, that proves that," the normal-born from West Sussex mused. "_Rittmeister _von Taserich WAS playing as Death when he encountered the Peverell brothers years ago." _

_"Why would he do that, 'Mione?" Ron asked. _

_"He's immortal, Ron. They get bored easy," Harry answered. _

_The youngest Weasley son nodded. "Right!" _

_Another spirit butterfly then fluttered down. «Big Brother! We found Miss Snake!» _

_«She's in Ravenclaw Tower, Harry,» Neville added. «She's trying to get to the window overlooking the Long Bridge right now…shit! Hagrid, be…!» _

_An explosion of glass echoed from behind and above Harry, making him calmly glance up as a large, dark mass seemed to drop down towards him. Without hesitation, he waved his hand up. "_**SAGITTA MAGICA!**_" he barked…as a STORM of glowing arrow-like bolts of energy lashed up to puncture Nagini's body from under the neck to the tail. The large magical python hissed out her pain at being wounded like that before a shield charm from Hermione deflected the falling beast to crash down onto the Long Bridge close to the academic wing. As Voldemort bellowed out in outrage on seeing his beloved familiar hurt like that, Harry smirked… _

_…as he raised the Key and allowed it to slam down on the flagstone. _

_"Hold them here! I want them to watch!" _

_A titanic howl of voices bellowed the grounds of Hogwarts, which made all the Death Eaters and their allies scream out on realizing they had waltzed right into a trap… _

**«AT THE BLIGHTERS, EVERYONE!»**

_A virtual STORM of glowing spirits leapt out of the invisible gateway connecting the Scottish Highlands with the moors of Cornwall, forming two enveloping waves as they lunged down at the flotilla approaching Hogwarts. Before any of Voldemort's people could do anything — even activate their portkeys to escape the oncoming vengeance-crazed spirits — the Hollows snared them and yanked them high into the air, causing many of them to cry out in pain as they felt the horrid drain on their magic and their souls contact with the inhabitants of the Maze Amongst the Rocks unleashed in all their victims. As Voldemort spun up to aim the Elder Wand at the deadly spirits that had cost him so much over the last two months, two of the Hollows lunged directly at him. _

**«Hey, Little Tommy-Wommy! Long time, no see, mate!»**

_The Dark Lord gasped as dim memories from his childhood came back. "Dennis…?" _

_Both the spirits of Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson plunged into Voldemort's chest, causing him to scream out in agony as his magically-created body — forged by the darkest of re-birthing rituals — violently reacted to the powerful family magic of the Slytherin line which touched all the Hollows of Gonebren, thus channelling the sheer torrents of life energy a DOZEN ley lines intersecting under the prison complex itself could feed through each of the bodiless wraiths that now called the Maze Amongst the Rocks home. Watching this, Harry smirked as he sensed Rose and Neville race down from Ravenclaw Tower so they could get at Nagini. "Just got to time it right," the Boy-Who-Lived mused aloud as he sensed the great magical python move to gather what strength she had left to lunge at the young Speaker who had caused her beloved master so much harm in the last seventeen springs… _

_Nagini didn't sense her own death coming at her from behind. _

_Neville went low with his katana, striking at the level of the snake's stomach. _

_Rose went high with her soulsword, slicing right through Nagini's jaw into her brain. _

_As an explosion of energy erupted from the mortally-wounded python to light up the evening sky over Hogwarts, Voldemort — already being burned from the inside by the spirits of the two orphans he had badly hurt decades ago — howled with agony as the backlash of Rose's soulsword slammed into his mangled mind at nearly point-blank range. At that moment, Harry shoved the Key of Gonebren into Hermione's hand before he lowered the boom. _

_"_**SEISHIN-HASAI HI-KŌSEN!**_" _

_The Killing Curse-like green ki beam of the Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light — which Yomigawa Tsukiko learned from Earth's first true artificial intelligence, the fabled Earth Angel Moroboshi Negako, decades ago during the Age of the Steel Angels — lashed out to rip into the Dark Lord. As anguished cries echoed from the captive junior Death Eaters in the residence wing behind Harry as they watched their leader and master being literally shredded alive like that before their eyes, Voldemort's howl of agony turned into an ear-splitting shriek of mortal pain as he felt things deep inside his body ripped away and his magic violently torn from his control. A moment later, the Hollows that had once been two children Tom Riddle ruthlessly tormented in a cave on the coast of the English Channel in East Sussex vacated his physical form…just as the burning, scalding torch tearing him apart from the direction of the Long Bridge faded. _

_"_**ACCIO THOMAS MARVOLO RIDDLE!**_" _

_The Summoning Spell yanked Voldemort right at the Long Bridge, sending him — who, much to Harry's surprise, was STILL tightly grasping the Elder Wand! — smashing head-first into the inner guard rail close to Hermione. As a moan escaped the Dark Lord's blood-filled mouth, Harry reached over to draw out Senkō…then with one slash of the blade, forever shattered the Elder Wand. As Voldemort — who was try to marshal what energy he had left to strike back — gaped in shock on seeing the "invincible" wand now in two pieces, Harry sheathed the meson katana he had been loaned by Yomigawa Tsukiko, then calmly tossed Senkō over to Ron. _

_"You were betrayed all along, Tom," he breathed out, keeping his voice low. "Uncle Severus was always loyal to my _mother_, not you and not Professor Dumbledore! When we discovered your horcruxi, we knew we had you right where we wanted you! All we needed was help in dealing with all your playmates…but your own ancestor guaranteed that! Didn't feel so good when you felt Master Salazar's magic BURN you from the inside-out, eh?!" _

_The Dark Lord groaned out, "Pot-…ter…!" _

_"Don't worry about your horcrux in Bellatrix's family vault," Harry added as he moved to stand like some angry god over the fallen Voldemort, magic billowing in his right hand. "Three soulsword strikes and the spirit-breaker fire-light — the long-distance version of the soulsword — should be enough to burn the soul fragment there into nothing more than a mere dumb golem. Once the laws change and we can finally get rid of the thing, all its memories — even those that were absorbed into the Cup from your other horcruxi — will be used to make sure the whole world knows what you did since the day you killed Myrtle O'Neil!" He smirked. "Well, much that it's been fun — and it hasn't! — say good-night, Tommy-Wommy. _

_"_**ANIMAE GLADIUM!**_" _

_And the soulsword slashed down one more time…_

* * *

The Second Purification War was over.

Over two thousand Death Eaters, Snatchers, lycanthropes and other supporters of the Dark Lord Voldemort found themselves incarcerated in Gonebren for the Hollows to ravage for six months before a rebuilt Azkaban Prison — now officially operating with a Royal Warrant as **_Her Majesty's Prison Azkaban_** — was reopened for business; while the meson bomb built by Mun Aesup had burned the old prison to the ground, the island was still intact and could be used. Once that was done, Voldemort's effectively-comatose supporters were transferred over, guarded by goblins until Aesup and some of her friends created special technomagic blocks to keep the inmates locked in.

Not that, for any of them, it would matter in the long run.

NONE had felt remorse for what they felt.

So they suffered unspoken agonies at the hands of beings who — when they were living people — the prisoners might have killed without hesitation.

For the Hollows, their duty had been done as the Queen so willed it.

After Gonebren was emptied in early 1998, they slept…

…until they felt someone other than the Queen grasp the Key of Gonebren.

As they had always done for a millennia to others who had been given the Key, the Hollows sought out the soul of this new Holder…

…and discovered an incredible surprise.

Harry Potter — being that he had ALWAYS seen himself as a normal person who had been blessed with magic and not just a magical person…with the sense of personal superiority over normals many of those beings often had — had been quite incredible as the Holder of the Key of Gonebren…

…but he had nothing on Elizabeth Gibbon.

For Elizabeth — a normal-born witch from Yorkshire — had parents who, after they were slaughtered by vengeful magicals for something they weren't responsible for, BECAME Hollows on their passing from mortal life!

And she — despite her having fought for the same cause as the warriors from Germany and elsewhere in Europe who had been incarcerated in the Maze Amongst the Rocks over sixty years before — had called down one of the most powerful benedictions of Magic known.

The Vengeance of Blood.

When the beings reborn to avenge the pain of others learned why…

…they judged that this one was truly good.

And once more…the Hollows of Gonebren went to war.

* * *

Diagon Alley, near the entrance to Gringotts, Wednesday 21 July 2010, thirty minutes before lunch…

Harry Potter gave his head a slight shake as Elizabeth Gibbon's voice brought his reminiscing back to the present:

"We've vampires to kill!" she hissed out after she allowed the Key of Gonebren to touch the flagstone walkway of Diagon Alley, allowing a spark to flash.

Everyone seeing this then gaped on hearing a haunting voice bellow out in turn…

_**«YE HEARD THE GOV'NOR, EVERYONE! LET'S BE AT 'EM!»**_

And with an explosion of fog and the roaring scream of thousands of vengeful spirits who had inhabited the Maze Amongst the Rocks for centuries, the Hollows came…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) _Harry Potter_ character notes:

The given name of **Peter Yaxley** is my creation.

**Dennis Bishop** and **Amy Benson** were first mentioned in _Half-Blood Prince_. **Thomas John Riddle** (the middle name is my invention) and his wife **Mary Riddle** were first mentioned in _Goblet of Fire_. Thomas' and Mary's son **Thomas Albert Riddle** (again, the middle name is my invention) was first mentioned in _Chamber of Secrets_.

**Hamilton St. John** is a creation of mine for the _Icemaidens_ stories; he first appeared in _Harry Potter and the Icemaidens_. In that story, he was Rose Potter's godfather.

The names of Pansy Parkinson's parents, **Malcolm Parkinson** and **Gruoch Parkinson**, are derived from one of my favourite fanfics, _White Knight, Grey Queen_ by **Jeconais**. This fanfic can be read at the Fanfic Authors website; be warned that people have to register to read some of the stories there.

**Golgomath** was first mentioned in _Order of the Phoenix_. It was also in that book that **Elphias Doge** and **Sturgis Podmore** first appeared.

**Bathsheda Babbling** was first mentioned at JKR's official website.

**Charity Burbage** first appeared in _Deathly Hallows_.

**John Summers** (his given name is my invention) was one of those who tried to cross the age line to put his name into the Goblet of Fire so he could represent Hogwarts in the Triwizard Tournament during _Goblet of Fire_.

The family name of **Myrtle O'Neil** — properly known as **Moaning Myrtle** — is also my creation.

2) Translations: **Chosŏn** — Literally "New Morning," this is the name applied to the Korean kingdoms that existed on the peninsula from the mythological founding date of 2333 B.C.E. to 108 B.C.E. (called **Gojosŏn** or "Old Chosŏn") and from 1392-1910…and still forms part of the Korean name for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea); **Sŏnsaeng-nim** — The Korean version of the Japanese word _sensei_ with the "_-nim_" suffix honorific which is the Korean version of the Japanese "_-sama_" suffix honorific; **-a** — The Korean version of the Japanese suffix honorific "_-chan_" applied to names or familial terms that end in a consonant sound (when the word ends in a vowel, it's **-ya**); **Mesonium Revelio** — Reveal the Mesonium; **Sagitta Magica** — Magical Arrows (a spell from _Negima_).

3) **Kenchū** ("Modest Heart") and **Senkō** ("Clear Light") were first mentioned in Part 11 of _Avalonians at Hinata-sō_. The former was a Siberian nightmare; I borrowed the concept from the fanfic story _Lord of Caer Azkaban_ by **Rorschach's Blot**. The latter is a katana forged of mesonium in the same balance between the three different natural forms (diamond, ruby and ebony) as a Power Jewel (sixty percent diamond, thirty percent ruby and ten percent ebony).

4) The actual location of **St. Trinian's School for Girls** has never been given in the comics or the movies made based on them since the first comic collection, _Hurrah For St. Trinian's_, was published in 1948. I place the school in Cambridge in salute to the series' creator, **Ronald Searle** (1920-2011).


	8. The Battles of Diagon Alley & Auschwitz

The _Vernichtungslager_ of _Konzentrationslager Auschwitz_ (also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau), three kilometres west of downtown Oświęcim (200 kilometres southwest from Warsaw), a half-hour after lunch (London time: A half-hour before lunch)…

Delighted laughter echoed amidst the endless moans of millions who had died in this charnel house and over the mostly-empty fields where the most well known of the Nazi extermination camps that had unleashed the _HaShoah_ on all of humanity…and would forever remain the eternal symbol of man's cruelty to man.

When the crowds of gawking normals who came to tour the southeastern part of the Birkenau site — where still-intact prisoner barracks stood close to the main guard house and the railroad siding beside which trains of cattle cars transporting the condemned to this hellish place pulled up to — took a chance to gaze towards the planned camp extension set north of the main ground near where the barracks for the camp staff were located, they saw a level field clear of trees fenced off by once-electrified fences composed of barbed wire that would have enclosed off the camp extension that had been planned for the place and partially built before the avenging hordes of the Red Army stormed into this part of Europe in early 1945.

What the normals could _**not**_ see were a small cluster of still-intact buildings at the very northwest corner of the grounds — which today lay due south of Leśna Road where a suburb of modern Oświęcim had grown out in recent years — that were protected by layers upon layers of mundane-repellant charms, thus allowing this small visual remnant of the magical aspect of the Holocaust to remain invisible to normal eyes.

These days, magicals living in continental Europe were taught in their history classes that Grindelwald's War had been fought with no taint from the Nazi monsters who had come within a hair's breadth of becoming the masters of the Continent.

The truth — as those who actually pursued intensive post-graduate mastery studies in Magical History soon learned — was a lot more complex than that.

For not all magicals who were born in Germany and Austria during the years Adolf Hitler was Führer joined the Magische Reichsarmee when war was launched in 1939.

Despite Gellert Grindelwald's efforts to ensure all those who could wield a wand and showed even a modicum of competence in duelling were drafted into service to fight the magical enemies of the Reich and help create the Greater Good, some slipped through the cracks…and wound up being recruited to serve in the Schutzstaffel.

Wilhelm Mandel was one such man.

A native of what today was the Polish port city of Szczecin — Wilhelm still thought of that place by the German name "Stettin" — he had been drafted into the SS right after graduating with fair marks from the Greifinswald Academy of Sorcery near Wolgast in 1937. Like many who had donned the _Totenkopf_ on their head gear, Wilhelm had been immersed in the pseudo-Germanic mystical traditions created by Heinrich Himmler's people — and, due to his magical training, had been encouraged to help his comrades understand the meaning of things like runes and legends — thus made to believe that all of the citizens of the Fatherland had a right and duty to be the Master Race, rulers above all of humanity. Hand-in-hand with such indoctrination was the encouragement to loathe all "subhumans" that were infesting Germany at the time…especially the greedy and dirty monsters who dared claimed themselves to be God's chosen children.

Shortly after the Final Solution was formally initiated at the Wannsee Conference at the start of 1942, Wilhelm was assigned to the _Totenkopfverbände_ at Auschwitz.

There was a necessary reason for that, he soon learned.

Despite the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy that kept magical and normal separated for over two centuries, there were those gifted with magic willing to do _anything_ to protect their normal brethren even if doing such violated the tenets of the Statute itself. Many of those people were Jews, Gypsies and Slavs who didn't care about the Nazis exterminating their families and friends…and who decided — in following the classical theory that an unjust law is _**no**_ law — that another classic dictate would be obeyed whenever chance presented itself: An eye for an eye.

On arriving at Auschwitz, Wilhelm — then ranked _Obersturmführer_ in the SS — soon learned how badly his normal brothers and sisters in the Protection Squads and other elements of the Party had suffered at the hands of the rogue magical subhumans.

For example, in the wake of the assassination of Gestapo director Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans in the summer of 1942, the natives of the Bohemian villages of Lidice and Ležáky near Prague were nearly exterminated to the last in retaliation due to evidence — later proven false — that the assassins hailed from those places. Within a week of the liquidations, ALL the members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel living in the Sudetenland towns of Karlsbad and Troppau — today the Czech towns of Karlovy Vary and Opava respectively — were found raped and murdered, throats slit and bodies hideously mutilated, the corpses left impaled on wooden stakes in a field outside town.

Along with the corpses was a note: _**This can happen to you as well. Heydrich was only the beginning. We will not stop until all the "master race" are exterminated.**_

Horrified to discover there were people willing to do THAT to the loyal supporters of the Führer, Heinrich Himmler — with the urgent prompting of Martin Bormann and other senior Nazi leaders — moved to prevent these monsters from actually succeeding.

Unfortunately, since the Magische Reichsarmee and the Übermenschen Gruppe were too busy engaging in desperate combat against the external enemies of the Fatherland, Himmler decided that such "internal" dissent would be dealt with by people under his own charge.

Hence, the magical side of places like Auschwitz.

Despite the considerable advantages magicals possessed when it came to combat against non-magicals, there were many times that magicals were caught off-guard, then — once their powers were contained thanks to devices provided by the Undying Lord himself — they were transported in special trains to the extermination camps to be tortured and liquidated after every little ounce of useful information was torn from them.

However, doing that at locations where industrial-scale murder was being done 24/7 exacerbated something that would haunt places like Oświęcim for decades to come…

* * *

_Release us…_

"**_Silence!_**" Wilhelm Mandel snarled as his blood-red eyes focused on the wispy ghosts that had been haunting the walls of the barracks-like edifice where the _Spezielle Vernichtungeinheit_ for Auschwitz had been located since the Russians overran this place in 1945. He had been ecstatic when he returned here some months ago at the behest of the man who, in the wake of the Fatherland's conquest by the lesser races, helped him embrace an even _greater_ power than magic so Wilhelm and his brothers and sisters who had proudly served in the SS would evade capture by roving squads of Allied hit wizards…to say anything of the traitorous bitches of the Schwarze Mädchen who — once freed of their sacred magical oaths to the Führer — turned like rabid dogs on their comrades and hunted them down without mercy until the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard saw them redeem themselves by trying to stop the beast hordes of Nerio from invading Earth. After using his vampire-enhanced magic to examine what was still here, Wilhelm had laughed with delight, finding himself grateful that the morons of the _Naródnyj Komissariát Mágičeskie Del_ who accompanied the subhuman Slav hordes into Poland only put up strong repellant charms around this building to keep the normals away. As he learned from friends working for Adam Sewell, the NKMD — thanks to the hatred of all things religious true communists adhered to — also persuaded their Polish comrades in the _Ministerstwo Magii_ to NOT summon exorcists from Rome and Jerusalem to cleanse Auschwitz of the spirits of its millions of victims…which allowed a massive node of entropic energy in a type of "sinkhole" to be created which just BEGGED to be tapped into for better uses.

And right now, Adam — whom Wilhelm owed a profound magical debt to — and his brother and sister daywalkers had a VERY urgent use for this energy.

The Avalonians.

Wilhelm tried not to scowl as he recalled the few times he had encountered those damned bioroids since the Liberation, both in Germany and here in Poland. The stench of the mesonium in their blood always burned his hypersensitive nose every time he smelt it, which told him right away that trying to take the blood of one of those women would be tantamount to suicide. Even more, thanks to the bioroids' former masters and their mad passion for all things Terran, the Avalonians came in all forms…INCLUDING Jews and Gypsies, not to mention the other subhumans that the Nazis tried to wipe off the map six decades before! Atop that, they gladly supported movements that weakened the Aryan blood which still flowed through the veins of the Master Race by allowing such unholy things as alternate lifestyles and giving the mentally ill a chance to live true lives. They didn't care about the differences of skin colour or any of the other dividing lines that separated the stronger and weaker races; in their psionically enhanced eyes, ALL sentient beings — and they went so far as to include creatures like goblins, centaurs, the natives of Nerio and the like as being SIMPLY NO DIFFERENT than human! — were the same and deserved equal respect. Worst of all, they willingly sought vampires of all types to help them once more "embrace true life"…which stripped them of their powers and made them as weak as the cattle they hunted for blood!

When Adam had told Wilhelm and his friends about the dire threat the "crystal-bloods" now presented to vampires, it had been an easy conclusion for all of them to make.

No self-respecting hunter of blood would EVER tolerate such a thing!

It had to be stopped by all means possible.

Hence, Wilhelm's current mission to Auschwitz.

"Do you think we can purge all the energy in this place in time?"

Wilhelm winked at his current companion, a grin crossing his face. Janina Neumann was a native of Breslau — today the Polish city of Wrocław — who had been a _Haupthelfer_ at Auschwitz who had been turned thanks to Adam Sewell's wonderful sister Valdoma in the wake of World War Two. She was also a magical, having graduated in the top third of her class at the Nurmengard Academy of Magic in 1937. Her half-blood status, however, denied her a chance to become one of Grindelwald's elite Black Maidens. That made Janina resent those such as Margareta Hecht, the bitch who eventually killed the Führer's personal secretary Martin Bormann in 1945. It also helped ensure she joined the women's auxiliary of the SS, the _Helferinnenkorps_. Like Wilhelm, Janina had taken personal delight in torturing captured magical partisans, even going so far as to rape male prisoners to give them a taste of what their friends did to the helpless maidens of Karlsbad and Troppau.

Wilhelm and Janina had been passionate lovers since the war, living off the normal cattle as they shifted from town to town across Germany, inwardly disgusted at how the lesser races had thoroughly raped and pillaged the Fatherland in the wake of 1945, effectively erasing all the good things the Nazis had done for their people…yet both knew that if they and their friends tried ANYTHING to raise the _Hakenkreuzflagge_ once more, magical and normal Germans alike would be all over them like a plague!

"It shouldn't take too long," he said as he watched the potion over the portable stove he set up in a circle of runes in the middle of the room to ensure the ingredients could safely draw in the energy that permeated this place and allow it to be infused in the black meson crystals at the bottom of the cauldron. "We were busy here, remember?"

"_Ja_, I do," Janina wistfully noted as she looked around.

_Release us…_

"**Oh, shut up!**" Wilhelm snarled out with splayed fangs, projecting his magic out to silence the restless spirits around them. "**Stupid filth! Learn your place!**"

"Stop wasting your energy, Willi!" Janina said as she gazed sympathetically at him. "I'll bet they've been moaning like this for the last sixty years. The Polacks didn't do a thing to exorcise them even after 1989, so why should they hope…"

_You're too late,_ unmenschlich schweinhund_!_

Both Nazi vampires howled with outrage. "_**WHAT DID YOU SAY?!**_" Wilhelm screamed.

Amused laughter answered. _You're too late…the Archangel's Avatar comes…!_

Wilhelm and Janina blinked…

…before the sealed door leading into the building exploded inward, nearly ripping the former's head off as it crashed against the opposite wall…which was FORTY metres away at the north end of the building! As both vampires stared in stunned shock at the wrecked door, they then tensed on hearing a strange piston-like sound as their magical senses overloaded from the waves of DEATH now emanating into the room.

"**Excuse me**," a metal-tinged man's voice asked in accented English, his annoyance quite apparent. "**May I ask why is it you people are butting into my dreams?**"

Both former members of the SS turned…

…and found themselves staring at a walking nightmare.

* * *

Diagon Alley in London, that moment…

Now seated on the roof of Gringotts, Inada Mizuho smirked with delight as she watched the Hollows storm forth through the magical gateway opened by Elizabeth Gibbon to flood both Diagon and Knockturn with their numbers, all of them then diving into the shadows where two hundred vampires had hidden themselves in preparation to launch an attack on the unsuspecting magicals who frequented this quaint old shopping district.

Much to the would-be Zoroastrian warrior-priestess' personal dismay, many of the people in Diagon and Knockturn today did nothing save stand there like stunned idiots as the wraiths of Gonebren went forth to do the bidding of the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen. It was disappointing…and a clear demonstration on how far the wizarding culture of the United Kingdom had fallen behind in comparison to their peers elsewhere on Earth, even on the Continent itself. Dulled by a lack of proper situational awareness training and wand discipline thanks to lacklustre instruction they received in Hogwarts, none of them had sensed the danger looming in time to prepare themselves for what was to come when Elizabeth charged out of the shoppe owned by the ever-jovial Fred and George Weasley…though the Yorkshire-born veteran of World War Two in Europe herself had to be alerted to the oncoming danger by the wise Abraham Lincoln, who had honed his senses when it came to the undead to a knife's edge for over a century.

Fortunately, there were veterans of Britain's most recent magical civil war present at the time who were willing to help Elizabeth, her twin sister Jessica and their brave friends in putting the vampires down. From Weasley Wizard Wheezes came the shoppe's owners, their fiery younger sister Ginny and the Man-Who-Won himself, Harry Potter. From Rosa Lee Teabag came Harry's passionate sister Rose and several of her friends from Meridiana, the loyal and strong Neville Longbottom, his bright sister Grace, the all-seeing Luna Lovegood, the Weasley siblings' brother Ronald, the sarcastic yet wise Severus Snape and the sly yet helpful Mundungus Fletcher…whom Mizuho had arranged to meet this day to conduct some business to generate some funds for her classmates on the bioroid factory to use for the next couple of months' weekend trips down to Earth. And from Gringotts came the young yet intelligent Blaise Zabini…who was flanked by a platoon of armed goblin guards in full battle armour and with bared steel swords and daggers ready to ensure no vampire invaded their noble establishment uninvited.

"**_RAIL-SPLITTER!_**"

Mizuho's head snapped over on hearing that outraged scream from one of the vampires who used his transformation abilities to render himself mist and avoid the Hollows' grasp. Noting that Lincoln was now facing a half-dozen of the undead hunters of blood, she scowled as she lifted the Staff of Gihan to level the crystal on one…

…before her eyes went wide as the nigh-immortal former president of the United States surged at them, twirling his woodsman's axe over his head with the speed of a propeller blade before he beheaded three in one go. As spell fire lanced out from the Black Maidens and their new allies at those other vampires who had avoided the grasp of the Hollows, Lincoln ducked a wild punch from a man who had come up behind him, then twirled and literally cut the fool vertically in half from crotch to forehead. As the creature collapsed in two pieces on the cobblestones at his feet, the Kentucky-born vampire hunter then sent a knife-hand strike into the abdomen of another vampire that got close to him, then twisted his limb and yanked out…pulling her heart out along the way! That caused the last blood-hunter to gape…which was enough for Harry to turn his head into a fine mist of bone, gore and ichor with a Reductor Curse.

As that was happening, the six Schwarze Mädchen were conjuring all sorts of weather-based attacks on the vampires now being herded towards them by the Hollows. Noting that, Mizuho nodded; no doubt, Elizabeth had mentally asked the spirit of her late mother Alana to make her friends let this happen so the just-revived veterans of the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard got some exercise before they went forth to perform their duty for the Daughter of the Pendragon. Despite their being in virgin bodies that had just been freed from over six decades in suspension, the Black Maidens hadn't lost their killer edge. Storms of lightning bolts from Cara Walthari, knives of ice from Lila Fontaine, concentrated tornadoes from Aimée Sutone, blasts of laser-like sunlight from Margareta Hecht and conjured magical soulswords from the Gibbons twins were cutting down the opposition like wheat on the Great Plains of America falling before a grain harvester. And while their friends and veterans of the Order of the Phoenix and the Defence Association of Hogwarts were holding their own, they just didn't move with the inhuman speed and the grace of the finest ballet dancers shown by the Black Maidens.

Within about a minute of the Hollows being summoned to Diagon, the few undead vermin who had — most likely, by sheer luck! — STILL managed to keep free realized that they needed to escape and inform their leader that the _**hunters**_ were now the _**hunted**_. As they moved to flee through the Leaky Cauldron and the other hidden gateways that led out of Diagon and Knockturn onto Leicester Square to the west and Irving Street to the south, Mizuho smirked on hearing all of them howl with outrage as they found themselves slamming into unyielding energy barriers that the would-be warrior-priestess herself had set up with the Staff. "They are displeased," she mused aloud as the Longbottom siblings, Luna, Ron and Jessica charged towards the west end of Diagon to deal with the vampires there, a company of Hollows flanking the magicals to ensure none of their friends who helped them feed on the supporters of Voldemort years ago, much less Alana Gibbon's younger daughter, did not come to harm.

**_Naturally_**, the Staff commented with a smile in its voice. _**Their arrogance is quite obvious, Controller. Indeed, they should have remembered that — given that Abraham Lincoln effectively chased they and their friends out of the United States of America by the time he encountered Deannette Antonia Raeburn 121 years ago — he would react immediately to any future sighting of such a large congregation of vampires.**_

"Indeed." She then smiled. "If you wish me to move, My Lord, I can."

Her head shifted around to allow her to gaze in amusement at a flustered Ragnok, now wearing his battle armour and flanked by a platoon of guards; the chief director of Gringotts in Britain and his troupe had tried to quietly approach the Friend of Dragons once they saw her sitting on the roof of their establishment observing the rapid-paced battle on the cobblestone street below. "My apologies, good lady," Ragnok said with a polite bow of his head as his current companions slightly relaxed themselves; even if the Friend of Dragons had not done anything against any of the Noble Tribe, they were all oath-sworn to protect their leader no matter what. "I should have hailed as soon as I came up the stairs. I didn't mean to make you believe I meant you harm."

"To me, good sir, your emotions are really no different than people such as Lord Harry and his doughty friends, to say anything of the Wise Mistress Elizabeth and her brave warriors," Mizuho stated as she stood, twirling the Staff with practised ease to allow the glowing crystal head to hover close to her left ankle. As the goblins — who could all sense that the Staff's physical form had to mass several hundred kilograms — nodded in appreciation at such a casual show of strength by this humble follower of the words of the great sage Zaraϑuštra Spitāma, she turned to gaze down Knockturn to see Aimée Sutone and Lila Fontaine literally burn away the half-dozen vampires who had been trying to escape onto Irving Street. "I mean that as no insult, of course."

Ragnok cackled. "None ta-…"

A shocked gasp then dropped Mizuho to her knees, her eyes wide with surprise as a faint yet ever-present psionic link with someone she had fallen totally in love with months before — and that had been forged a little over a week ago — echoed deep inside her mind with a mixed cauldron of anger and surprise…tinged with the metallic chill that indicated that he had allowed the dark side of the Wise Lord Himself to overcome his soul and seize control of his body. Before the goblins could react and assist her to her feet, the traveller from another dimension screamed out, "_**BELOVED!**_"

And with an explosion of energy, she teleported off to the east-southeast…

* * *

Auschwitz-Birkenau, a moment before…

Moroboshi Ataru was quite upset.

He just HATED it when _**that**_ part of his soul suddenly reacted to some odd stimuli and made him do something without giving his conscious mind a chance to ask "Why?"

Especially when he — having gone to bed early today — had found himself slipping into the Dreamscape…and once more began to dream of THEM.

The girls of _Battle Royale_.

He didn't understand why he dreamt of those girls these days, though. As many who knew him personally could attest, Ataru had an interesting love-hate relationship with the manga based on the infamous novel written near the end of the previous decade by Takami Kōshun. The characterizations were quite enticing and easily grabbed the reader's attention — helped so by the extra attention to detail paid to them in comparison to what was shown in the original novel or the movie based on it, that topped with the human-like artwork done by the manga series' creator, Taguchi Masayuki — to earn necessary sympathy to increase the impact of the story…yet the story itself was something Ataru just loathed since **_none_** save TWO of the characters survived in the end. Yes, one could be sympathetic to the systematic abuse and rape suffered by Sōma Mitsuko when she was a child and the cold indifference bestowed to Kiriyama Kazuo by his caregivers in the wake of the accident that killed his mother and switched off his emotions…but how could one enjoy a story where a bunch of _third-year middle school students_ were made to _**kill**_ each other for reasons that were far to the left of totally STUPID?!

While he didn't plunged back into re-reading the whole manga these days, he did exercise his talents to sketch pictures of the _Battle Royale_ girls — even if he was genetically an Avalonian now, Ataru did NOT bat for the home team; he liked the guys but didn't care to fantasize about them, thank the gods! — in scenes that reflected his private wish that many more than just Nanahara Shūya and Nakagawa Noriko had escaped Oki-shima at the end of the story. Running along with that, he also imagined ways for the other characters to have lived through _The Program_, even the early victims like Fujiyoshi Fumiyo (cut down by Kamon Yonemi during "homeroom class") and Tendō Mayumi (shot down by Akamatsu Yoshio after she walked out of the school). Unfortunately, Ataru knew he was no writer by any stretch of the imagination, so he couldn't compose such fan fiction stories for publication on the Net. And while there were the odd times when he fantasized about those girls — even during the time he was "married" to Redet Hensō…though, in one of many ways that demonstrated how much the Oni-form Avalonian loved him, Lum's twin DID comprehend what had attracted Ataru to _Battle Royale_ in the first place — they never _constantly_ haunted either his conscious or subconscious thoughts.

A week ago, that had changed.

For the utter life of him, he simply couldn't understand why.

In his dreams these days, he always found himself on Oki-shima, encountering those very girls in situations that did — and in many ways, did NOT! — reflect what happened in the manga, from meeting Fumiyo in the classroom to encountering Mayumi just outside the school building to finding a wounded Noriko in the village medical centre after she had been left there to recover by Shūya to meeting Mitsuko on the cliff at the north end of the island to meeting almost all the other girls at various other places. In many of those encounters — save for those with girls who had confirmed boyfriends such as Ogawa Sakura and Kotohiki Kayoko…not to mention girls like Fumiyo and Mayumi — he found himself experiencing QUITE intimate encounters that had left him with soaked bedsheets and futons every night since! From getting double-teamed by Shimizu Hirono and Minami Kaori — which had blown Ataru's mind totally away; didn't those two girls hate each other?! — near the centre of the island to learning out how "snuggly" Nakagawa Yūka really was, it just didn't stop!

The only characters he HADN'T encountered in those dreams over the last week were his two favourites.

And while he knew they were just simple dreams and not reflections of true reality by any stretch of the imagination — even if it was fundamentally possible for Avalonians to use the Dreamscape to subconsciously contact each other, Ataru himself had never done anything to explore that aspect of his new powers — the fact that he hadn't got a chance to enjoy something with either Inada Mizuho or Noda Satomi was starting to get frustrating…even for a man who had consciously wanted to do everything to stay loyal to his current pair of lovers, Sebone Shikuko and Noberu Miyako!

And right now — after dreaming of a nice little orgy with Yūka and three of her fellow "lighthouse girls," Sakaki Yūko, Tanizawa Haruka and Matsui Chisato, in the living quarters of said lighthouse on Oki-shima's eastern tip — he was in some dark place that was filled to the rafters with ghosts…and he was in his Cyborg body to boot!

Someone was going to pay dearly for this…

"_**WHO ARE YOU?!**_"

Ataru blinked as he focused his good right eye on some blond Western guy — hair cut military short, of course — with almost ghostly white skin, blood red eyes and fanged canine teeth standing near the centre of the room. A quick ki check later, the transformed Terran tag race champion tried not to groan as he remembered the one time he had encountered a vampire back in Tomobiki the previous fall. _First ghosts, now daywalkers_, he mused to himself, confirming thanks to the shaded windows that it was well before dusk wherever he was. _Joy!_ "**I was just about to ask you that question, friend**," he declared as his cybernetic left eye locked on another corporeal person in this long hall — Western, nice body, very cute, early twenties, wavy dark hair in a ponytail…and with blood-red eyes and white skin confirming she was also a vampire, though that was easily fixed — before he gazed on the blond man. "**Where am I?**"

_Release us, oh Avatar of the Archangel…_

Ataru perked before he focused on the ghosts currently in this room. Sure enough, said spirits were also Western…and dressed in what appeared to be ragged prisoners' clothing. Noting that, Ataru then realized that ALL of these ghosts were as thin as proverbial rails, with skeletal like arms and legs, drawn faces — and all with shaved hair, even those women and children he could see — and other clear signs that he was now surrounded by the spirits of the victims of one of the most horrid crimes in all human history.

An annoyed sigh then escaped him. "**Don't tell me…let me guess**," he stated as the tendons over his right eye twitched. "**This is Oświęcim, right?**"

Both vampires snarled. "**_HOW DARE YOU…?!_**" the blond screamed as he charged…

…only to get his face nearly caved in by an outstretched metal armoured fist! As he collapsed to his knees, Ataru inwardly smirked on sensing the stunned shock flooding the vampires' souls on noting that the man — _Wilhelm Christian Mandel, originally from Szczecin on the Baltic coast, Senior Assault Leader of the…! Oh, fuck! He's a damned_ **Nazi**_!_ the transformed Japanese teenager quickly realized after his mind had a chance to analyze what his telepathy had locked in on when he had briefly touched the stupid goose-stepping undead moron — had been knocked down so easily.

"**Get it through your rotting skull, idiot!**" the machine-man snarled as he glared down at the dazed Wilhelm. "**This is ****_Poland_****! Always has been Poland, always will be Poland! You idiots from Germany had no claim on anything in this country, so don't call this place 'Auschwitz' even if you DID work here when you were still alive!**" He glared at the female vampire — _Janina Lise Neumann, originally from Wrocław not far from here, member of the SS women's auxiliary and Willi's lover for many years_, Ataru reminded himself — before he dipped his head in an approximation of a smile. "**Just like your home town is called ****_Wrocław_**** and your boyfriend's home town is ****_Szczecin_****, Janina-chan**," he added, which made her hiss. "**You lost the fuckin' war, so get over it finally!**" His left eye-sensor glowed, making Janina gargle on sensing the aura of power emanating from that ruby-red orb. "**Now, I ask again, very politely: Why am I here?**"

_Release us, Avatar of the Archangel…_

Suddenly, a burst of energy exploded from the wrecked doorway behind him.

"**_ATARU!_**"

He jolted…before he turned to stare wide-eyed at the young woman standing there, dressed now in — of all things — a medium blue Japanese sailor suit school uniform!

"**Mizuho…?**"

* * *

Warsaw, the Polish Ministry of Magic, that moment…

"_**DIRECTOR!**_"

The leader of the _Magiczne Policja Republiki_ yelped on hearing that panicked cry, then sighed. "Quit doing that, Kazik!" Halinka Gorazdowska snapped as a panting junior officer — just fresh from training at the law enforcement branch of the Gniezdno Academy of Sorcery outside its near-namesake cathedral town of Gniezno in west-central Poland — stopped to catch his breath. "Now, relax yourself and make your report!"

He deeply breathed in to calm himself. "I'm sorry, Director!" Kazik Mazurski stated as he bowed his head to the older woman, a fisherman's daughter from Gdańsk whose brother Stanisław Gorazdowski was recently appointed the commanding officer of the Republic's first _**starship**_, the _Błyskawica_. "The Class A alarms just went crazy! They just picked up the Przyjaciel Smoków! She's in Sector Mał, sub-sector Oś!"

Halinka blinked as she took in the words from the native of Olsztyn. Like most other magicals worldwide, she knew of the Friend of Dragons. While Poland wasn't blessed with the wide profusion of magical creatures as vast countries such as Russia, Canada, China or America — to say anything of a _planet_ full of magical beings such as Nerio! — it still had the common things like dragon preserves, mermen colonies in the Baltic Sea, house elf servants, local branches of Gringotts…not to mention the famous fire flower fields in the Carpathian Mountains along the border with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. While there hadn't been incidents of dragon poaching at the reserve in the High Tatras on the Slovak border south of Kraków which would have attracted the attention of that mysterious Avalonian-Japanese teenager with the strange alien battle staff, there HAD been four attempts at illegally cultivating fire flowers stopped by the Przyjaciel Smoków over the last few months that the director of the MPR personally knew of.

So why…?

Halinka then turned ash-grey as Kazik's words about that young woman's current location repeated themselves in her mind.

The _**Class A**_ alarms just went off!

Those were keyed into the six magically darkest places in the country, made that way thanks to the damned Nazis: Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibór, Bełżec, Chełmno…

And _Oświęcim_…better known worldwide by its German name, _**Auschwitz**_.

_Dear God! What on Earth made her go to THAT damned place?!_ the fisherman's daughter railed as she recalled the many times she pleaded with Minister of Magic Katarzyna Młynarczyk since she was made the Director of the MPR five years ago to hire the best magical exorcists regardless of country of origin to finally clear out those sinkholes of misery formed by the slaughter of MILLIONS of innocent people during the Holocaust.

Halinka then shook her head; she'd worry about that question later. "Get the duty team down there now!" she then barked. "Call Gringotts! We need curse-breakers to go down there as well! Pay it out of the emergency funds if they ask! MOVE!"

Much to her personal delight, the young cadet was already sprinting off to do as she had bade. _I'm sure glad I don't have to deal with the lazy bums that were working in this place back when the Communists were still in power!_ Halinka mused…

* * *

Auschwitz-Birkenau, that moment…

"**Mizuho…?**"

_Okay, I'm awake…so I_ **cannot** _be dreaming this!_

There standing before Ataru right now — holding the living symbol of an insane catastrophe that wiped out the fourth race to rise on Sagussa thirteen millennia ago; _How the HELL did she get her hands on the_ **Staff of Gihan** _of all things?!_ a part of him mentally railed on seeing that ancient battle staff with its human head-sized crystal of meson encased within a crescent moon-shaped holder at the business end — was a total impossibility.

_**Inada Mizuho**_.

Officially registered as Girl #1 of Shiroiwa Junior High School's Class 3-B…according to the class list in _Battle Royale_.

Who — in this universe — was a FICTIONAL CHARACTER!

And much that Ataru would have LOVED to have a replica of such a passionate, unique character as a friend, he never _once_ contemplating having such a replica made.

That was, after all, something the _**Niphentaxians**_ had done many times over…

…and after learning what some of those poor replicas had endured over the years, he had vowed to NEVER succumb to that sort of urge.

But this…

_Oh, no…!_

The still-organic upper right side of his face paled as the information his empathic senses was fast-feeding him churned through his mind. As that was happening, Ataru tried not to scream in outrage, vowing to himself to find the idiot that instigated this and torture said idiot with the martial arts knowledge he had received thanks to his sister Negako.

This girl was not a _**Terran-form Avalonian**_…

…but a _**Terran-**_**turned****_-Avalonian_**.

Which meant that this girl was born a normal Terran before becoming an Avalonian.

And given that she was a perfect physical match for the images of Inada Mizuho that Ataru had seen in his dreams over the last week…

Last week…?

_Oh, I am SUCH an idiot!_

The letter from his would-be bond-mate, the mysterious "Vinur Drekar" — to borrow the Icelandic name for her — that had been popping up from time to time since March…

Who had been forced to bring Azu Kakazu and her sister sex-droids to Earth over a week ago in ultimate hopes of keeping two victims of Hifuto Syndrome whole and hearty in spirit, which compelled Ataru to become their owner and master even if he had immediately moved to then see those girls become Avalonians themselves…

…and in her letter apologizing for forcing him through that, confessed that she was none other than the mysterious woman from Gestation Tower #98 on the Avalonian bioroid factory Ataru had encountered in the midst of the Liberation, who had yelled at him to stay away from coming inside that part of the bioroid factory…because she had to look in on her _friends_…!

That had been the first damned clue!

After all, pure-born Avalonians always called others of their kind "sisters."

_Terran-turned… _

_The Staff of Gihan… _

_Speaks — and writes — like Hiromi does… _

_And speaks with a_ Sanuki _accent, the local dialect of Kagawa Prefecture on _**Shikoku**_…! _

_Mizuho-vayae…_

Wait!

_Mizuho-_**vayae**_?!_

Since when did he start thinking of her as THAT?!

"_**CRYSTAL-BLOOD!**_"

An armoured hand shot out at that instant, snaring Wilhelm Mandel — whose shattered face was leaking ichor — by the neck to yank him face-to-face with a _very_ high-tech representation of Sagussa's god of death. "**You insulting my girl, pal?**" Ataru hissed out as his sensor-eye ominously glowed.

As Mizuho blushed, Wilhelm gargled as he tried to pull those rock-hard fingers away from his throat. Seeing this, Janina Neumann howled her outrage as she leapt…

…only to be doubled over by a punch to her stomach, which sent her crashing face-first into the floor! As a pained groan escaped her, Mizuho — who teleported over to intercept the stupid woman even if she knew that the former camp guard couldn't possibly hurt her beloved Ataru while he donned the dark armour bestowed to him by the Wise Lord Himself — smirked as she allowed the blunt end of the Staff to touch the floor. "Lady Janina, I do realize that you Nazis completely outshine all others throughout history by the mind-boggling depths of your _**stupidity**_…but surely even _you_ should have come to realize the hopelessness of your situation here," the would-be warrior-priestess stated as the dazed vampire gazed up at her. "If you attempt to take my blood, much less my beloved's blood, the meson in our regenerative enzymes would turn you into a 'crystal-blood' within minutes…and in a process that — as the noble Master Angelus and the passionate Master Spike could loudly attest — is quite PAINFUL! I have been dealing with dragon poachers and other such miscreants on Earth and on Nerio — including an honest-to-goodness GRIFFIN-DRAGON, whose power far outmatches their normal cousins here — for the past four months! My beloved has participated in MASSACRES on Okusei, Phentax Twelve and Tomobiki for much longer than that! Did you _**really**_ believe you could HOPE to deal with both of us even if you ARE vampires?!"

"**Mizuho…**"

"Yes, Dearest?"

"**Destroy her first, THEN rant at her!**" Ataru advised as he winked at her.

"Oh, be assured, my love, I shan't do that to her!"

He blink-blinked. "**Why not?**"

"Are you aware of the events yesterday morning at Nurmengard in Germany?"

A shake of the head answered her. "**Sorry. I don't keep up with magical events.**"

"Well, I managed to retrieve forty-four hundred of our sisters — all Terran-turned girls who turned out to be veterans of the Magical Army of the Reich from the European magical side of the Greater East Asia War; they were ultimately saved by the Lady Negako's delightful 'grandfather,' I suspect — from cryogenetic suspension in a cave near the prison itself before our friends' fellow vampires wound up giving themselves terminal cases of meson poisoning," Mizuho stated as she mirthlessly smiled at the dazed vampire now at her feet while Ataru's captive tried to struggle out of his metal-hard grip. "One of those wonderful ladies is a former schoolmate of the Lady Janina here, the Wise Mistress Margareta Hecht. I was actually thinking of turning Master Wilhelm's lover into one of us, then present her to the Lady Margareta as a personal sex toy…"

"_**NEVER!**_"

Summoning what strength he had, Wilhelm broke free of Ataru to lunge at Mizuho…

…only to collapse dead on the floor thanks to his leaving his _**throat**_ behind!

Shaking his head, Ataru moved to wipe the ichor and shredded flesh on the back of Wilhelm's shirt as Janina gaped wide-eyed at the sight of the man who had shared her heart and her bed for over sixty years now DEAD on the floor…!

Dead…!

Dead…

A moan escaped her as she seemed to collapse on herself, her skin regaining something of a healthy tone as her eyes reverted to a natural brown shade and the sharp canines in her mouth faded back to normal teeth. Instantly, Mizuho leaned down to probe her mind before she blinked, then sighed. "Even if you were involved in the evil that was unleashed in this place, you were still human all along," she whispered.

_Spare her, Fire Maiden…_

She blinked before turning to gaze upon the spirits now floating around her. "Why?"

The ghosts of Auschwitz's dead all grinned as their emaciated forms transformed into reflections of what they had been before they had run afoul of the Nazis. As he allowed the cold fire to restore him to normal, Ataru was quick to note that several men were in the dress uniforms of soldiers of the long-defunct armies of Austria-Hungary and Imperial Germany from World War One, medals of bravery and loyalty proudly displayed on their chests. As he tried not to scream out at being reminded of the insanity of the Holocaust and the millions it had claimed, those voices chanted, _Because what your proposed to do unto her — as you saw — is more of a threat to those like her than anything others may conceive, Fire Maiden. Even if she and her lover were the only ones given the gift of magic by God that were here when we faced the crematoriums still 'alive' today — and those not blessed with magic have almost all slipped from their mortal shells to face the Shadowlands before God grants them the right of final passage through the Veil of Eternity you and your beloved always see before your minds' eyes — the time of blood-revenge is long since done. Too much of it has been spilled in this accursed place._

"Then may I humbly ask upon you all a favour?"

_Ask._

"That you will allow the Black Maidens of Master Gellert Grindelwald — who, once freed of the ghastly oath forced on them to remain loyal to that monster Hitler, atoned for their affiliation with the Nazis by hunting down creatures like Martin Bormann…to say anything of the overlord of the Schutzstaffel himself! — a chance to tap unto the power of this place so they may destroy the beasts who seek to harm my adopted kinswomen?"

A pause before they shook their heads. _No. We know of the Black Maidens…but we are afraid that if the darkness of Auschwitz touches them, they will be lost once more to evil. They have suffered enough for their mistakes, Fire Maiden. Unlike others who ultimately fought under the swastika to help their master claim the Deathly Hallows, the Black Maidens were motivated to bring equality to all, magical and non-magical, human and non-human alike. After touching the minds of the undead ones, we know the Black Maidens are now effectively lost in this time, alone save for each other…and all of their newly-adopted kinswomen, the daughters of long-lost Sagussa from Avalon. They have earned their peace. _

_**Then will you all grant my controller that power? In exchange for your final passage through the Te'a to your long-earned rewards Beyond?**_

Hundreds of eyes focused on the crystal at the end of the Staff of Gihan. _Why? _

_**Because my controller — motivated by her beliefs — will not stand back as the battle between the so-called 'undead' and those still 'living' is soon to be fought on the Isle of Azkaban in approximately forty hours' time**_, the Staff stated as that focusing crystal pulsed in perfect cadence to its words. _**And while the odds are against them, the vampires will not give up. The skirmish presently being fought in Diagon Alley in London will not deter them. Their defeat must be total and complete to make them accept reason or destruction. The power within this place that was born in the wake of your murders will guarantee that, plus aid me to seek another like I, the Genesis Wand of Parah, so it can be used to restore my controller's male classmates to life.**_

_And thus allow all those who fell in_ The Program _to live in peace on our Earth? _

_**Yes.**_

Silence fell for a moment…before the ghosts all nodded. _It is agreed._

"Dearest, take Janina and get clear," Mizuho bade. "I sense our friends from noble Warsaw arriving to investigate what has happened here. I shan't be long."

Ataru smirked. "Hai!"

* * *

Diagon Alley…

It was supposed to have been a simple shopping trip.

Apparate herself over to Slug and Jiggers to get some supplies, maybe have a tea or coffee at the Leaky Cauldron or Rosa Lee Teabag, then apparate back to Romney Marsh.

Getting herself caught in the middle of a battle between her would-be "allies" among the daywalker vampires and the Black Maidens had NOT been part of the plan!

Not to mention…

As she ducked from the storm of spell fire unleashed by a strange blonde woman with grey eyes in a modern black business suit as she moved to mow down a gaggle of vampires before charging down Knockturn, Achelois Runcorn bit back the torrent of abuse trying to crawl up her throat at the sheer _**stupidity**_ Adam Sewell just demonstrated today.

To pull something like THIS on his would-be "allies"…!

She shook her head as she drew her wand and formed a defensive shield around herself. Tactically, pulling a raid like this had both its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it would unleash panic among the masses and — if the vampires had been crafty enough — might have made the people at the Ministry of Magic believe that a new Dark Lord had just fired the first shot in a rebellion against the current order. On the minus side — as was being proven right now — it confirmed the presence of a large mass of daywalkers in Britain…which, as now demonstrated by the presence of a man in funeral black swinging an AXE of all things to deal with some of these creatures, was an open invitation for the Ministry to call in the Rail-Splitter to deal with the lot.

And…

She shook her head as the screams from the crowd echoed in her ears, then turned to gaze on the impressive sight of Elizabeth Gibbon using conjured soulswords to rip apart several of the daywalkers while still calmly directing her subordinates and the Hollows that had been summoned to Diagon today to put down this raid.

Achelois still had trouble believing what the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen had just publicly declared before summoning the inhabitants of Gonebren to Diagon today.

_**The Vengeance of Blood**_.

ALL magical women in Europe — regardless of age, birth status or type of magical power — were diligently taught that most sacred of all benedictions, usually by older magical women in private lessons away from the formal classrooms.

The reasons why were just too ghastly to contemplate.

The dual heiress of the Runcorns of Halton and the Collinses of Widnes tried not to wince while the spells flew fast and furious around her as she remembered the day she had taken her first flying lesson on a broom, when a subtle charm had been used against her crotch to shatter her hymen and ensure she could not be a "virgin" in the magical sense even if she couldn't later give her maidenhead to her first sexual lover.

Magical legend and folklore were full of tales of virgin witches who had been kidnapped by wicked sorcerers and subjected to all sorts of hideous tortures to exploit their "purity" for evil. The results of such tortures usually spelt disaster for someone else and left the sullied witches either dead or forever stripped of their magic.

The Vindictam Sanguinis had been devised as a way to put a stop to all that.

As was generally accepted worldwide, the power of Magic Itself — while not truly sentient in a human sense even if many believed there were divine powers that controlled and influenced Magic — that filled all things was known to answer certain pleas made unto It.

This normally happened either at times of great pain…

…or at the end of a victorious quest such as a war against a powerful foe.

With all of the legends concerning the reason WHY the Vengeance of Blood had become one of the most powerful — if not THE most powerful! — benedictions unto Magic Itself had been burned into Achelois' head by her mother Napaeae long before she went to Hogwarts, there was the story of the FIRST time that benediction was reported to have been used.

Over a century before the Norman conquest of England, a young woman from the territory of old Mercia named Godgyfu — who was too poor to be given the chance to become one of the first class invited to Hogwarts — won the favour of a druid of the old Celtic faith and became his apprentice. The druid was a kind man who wished no harm unto anyone…but had earned the scorn of a lord for his "heresy" against Christianity. What was worse, said lord had under his command a powerful wizard who also believed in the religion that had been spread across Britain at the time of the fall of Rome. To bring the druid to heel, the wizard kidnapped poor Godgyfu — who had vowed unto the old gods that she would remain pure until she met a good man — and threatened to see her turned into a squib by raping her, thus making her break her magical oath. Unfortunately, said wizard didn't realize that the druid had taught his young apprentice very well; on realizing what was about to happen to her, Godgyfu called on Magic Itself to give her the power needed to protect herself and keep her own magic pure and whole.

Her plea was answered.

The wizard was struck dead by a lightning bolt from the heavens. The lord who had commanded said wizard to destroy Godgyfu's master would be cursed to die of a horrid illness before he could see to his affairs and select his heir…which saw his lands forfeited to the Crown of England under King Edmund I. The king would later command the elderly Helga Hufflepuff to come down from Scotland to investigate what had happened and why. The matronly co-founder and co-headmistress of Hogwarts met up with Godgyfu and her master, then learned of the Vengeance of Blood. Horrified to learn that the wizard who had wanted to destroy the druid had threatened to strip Godgyfu of her magic by raping her, Helga pleaded with the king to pass the first ever Magical Royal Proclamation to ensure that those who still followed the "old ways" were no longer subjected to persecution. On realizing what nearly had happened, the king readily agreed and issued his proclamation — despite howls of protest from Archbishop Oda of Canterbury and threats of excommunication from Pope Agapetus II down in Rome — which served as the foundation of the concept of freedom of religion in the magical world, eight centuries before it became codified in the normal world in the Constitution of the United States.

And the legends of the Vindictam Sanguinis were born.

Now…

Achelois could only shake her head in stunned admiration at the smart move Elizabeth Gibbon had just pulled moments before.

Ever since the Liberation, there had been a noisy debate in certain circles within wizarding Britain over what the Avalonians actually were. People grounded in the normal world found it easy to accept the aliens thanks to a healthy understanding of both science fiction and science fact; those like Hermione Granger and Harry Potter knew of the times the normals had experimented in CLONING animals — an act which all magicals avoided like the plague as they saw such as horridly unnatural — in recent years, thus the idea of replicating or building strands of DNA to create new life did not sound so odd to them. However, those who had been raised in a pure magical environment like Draco Malfoy — with next to NO contact with the normal world — couldn't bring themselves to fully comprehend the concept of "biological android" even if both words were grounded in classical Greek terms. Even more, attempts by normal-raised people like Hermione to make the magically-raised understand usually failed thanks to the deeply-bred arrogance people like Draco felt concerning their "superiority" over normals…which came hand-in-hand with a total contempt towards technology of any stripe. Atop that, when issues of potential influence in the Wizengamot — especially given calls in recent years to remove the barriers that blocked Meridiana-trained magi from dealing with anything influenced by the Ministry of Magic, which would have seen seats in the magical house of lords filled by Rose Potter's friends such as Cassiopeia Lestrange…not to mention put Draco Malfoy's own seat under threat from his sister Raven, especially after Narcissa learned her daughter was alive! — were factored in, finding ways to make the Avalonians seem less human to the masses became paramount.

Such moves were helped tremendously by the appearance of H.M.S. _Hood_ over the skies of downtown London a couple weeks ago when she was commissioned into the Royal Navy, which had horrified many magicals on realizing that the Avalonians' technology could possibly trump magic in all aspects.

And despite the fact that the Avalonians had recently helped people such as Pansy Black and Mandy Potter recover their magic — to say anything of helping victims of the Second Purification War such as Ginny Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin and Bellatrix Lestrange fully recover from their wounds…never mind what Alice Holmes had done in the mid-1980s to give people like Rose Potter and her friends life after the Death Eaters had killed them while they were still in their mothers' wombs! — out of a simple desire to assist those in need, people like Draco Malfoy who wanted to do anything to stop the bioroids from "meddling" in the affairs of wizarding Britain wouldn't give up; that was what had driven Theodore Nott's alliance with Adam Sewell in the first place.

Elizabeth Gibbon had just blown Theo's and Draco's cause right out of the water.

There was no way in Hell that any self-respecting WOMAN in wizarding Britain — even Draco's closest female allies in the Wizengamot such as Hester Selwyn (the Baroness of Hampstead and the first cousin once removed of Dolores Umbridge), Elaine Mithwold (the Baroness of Whitley and the aunt to Achelois' old year-mate Zacharias Smith) or Timaea Crouch (the Countess of Wells, the oldest serving member of the Wizengamot since the death of Elphias Doge in 1997 and the grandmother of the younger Barty Crouch) — would support ANY move to attack the Avalonians in the wake of a Terran-turned-Avalonian witch invoking the _Vengeance of Blood_ of all things to defend her and her friends against the threat…

"**_ACHELOIS! LOOK OUT!_**"

Achelois gasped as she found herself facing a snarling vampire…

…before he was bowled over by Rose Potter, who had tackled him with a move straight out of rugby football before he could try to take the apprentice curse-breaker hostage. The two tumbled onto the street close to the entrance to Madame Malkin's shoppe before the vampire rendered himself vapour to escape the healer's grasp…then lashed out with fingers now tipped in claws to rip this crystal-blood bitch's heart out. Rose ducked clear of those claws even if they tore into her shirt to expose her left breast and leave scar marks over the plump flesh…

…which made Achelois see red!

"_**IKHORH VRASMOS!**_"

A bolt of gold light lashed out from the curse-breaker's palm to slam into the vampire's chest, which made him howl with agony as the dank fluid within his veins and arteries literally evaporated, killing him just as efficiently as beheading or using silver or mesonium on him. As his smoking corpse dropped to the street, Achelois screamed out as she leapt over to gaze upon the wounds on Rose's chest. "Are you alright, Rose?!" she gasped as she moved to pull the torn clothing away and inspect the wounds…

…not realizing that her touching Rose's red hair allowed the healer a chance to probe right into the other woman's mind and discover…

_KRACK!_

As Achelois gargled on feeling her jaw dislocate from that well-aimed uppercut — that accompanied by a sudden, sharp pain at the back of her neck — she tried not to smile before unconsciousness finally seized her.

_This is not…the way…I wanted to…get close…to her…!_

* * *

Nearby, Harry had jolted on seeing the vampire tackled by his sister rip open Rose's shirt to expose her chest to anyone who wanted a cheap thrill. Before he could lash out against the perverted bastard for abusing his sister like that, _**Achelois Runcorn**_ of all people burned the creature's blood away with a very ugly spell that vampires had fought for years to have banned since it worked just as well against any of their kind as traditional weapons like silver or wood stakes. He then relaxed as the would-be curse-breaker moved to comfort Rose — despite his knowing that Achelois was potentially involved in the daywalker vampires' move to attack the Avalonians, Harry _also_ knew the dual heiress of the Runcorns and the Collinses had a massive crush on his sister, dating back to when they first met at Hogwarts in 1996 — and help her…

…before he laughed his guts out when Rose nearly knocked her jaw off!

"What the hell…?" Fred began.

"…was that about?" George finished.

The Man-Who-Won sighed as he did a quick scope of the scene. The aurors had finally come storming in from the Ministry to clear out the few vampires still on their feet in Diagon and Knockturn; much that he had tried for YEARS to get a ready reaction team of law enforcement officers put on constant standby, he hadn't got any sort of funding for it from the Wizengamot out of the excuse that such a "warlike" move in peacetime was a waste of money. The Hollows were fading to return back to Gonebren, their part of the mission set before them today by the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen now done. The shopkeepers and the other bystanders — who had, as usual, not lifted a wand to help out; it would be YEARS before the lazy arses died and allowed the younger generation being trained now at Hogwarts (who were being taught to be a lot more proactive and alert to potential threats) to take over those establishments — were peeking out of their stores to gawk at what had happened. The goblins who had stormed out of Gringotts alongside Blaise Zabini had now formed a cordon around the main doors of the bank, ready to take down anyone who might invade their territory. The Black Maidens and the veterans of the Defence Association and the Order of the Phoenix — including, much to Harry's surprise, Mundungus Fletcher of all people! — were also surveying the scene to ensure no further surprises popped up to hurt anyone…save for Elizabeth Gibbon herself, who was talking on a cell phone to someone, no doubt one of her friends up on the _Freedom_ to give them an update as to what was happening. And…

"What just made that poor woman earn your sister's ire, Mister Potter?"

Harry smirked as Abraham Lincoln came up, his axed covered in greenish-red ichor and bits of shredded flesh and gore. "She's one of your old sparring partner's would-be allies here in Britain, Mister President," he whispered as Elaine Savage shouted out orders to get her subordinates fanned out to survey the damage and locate casualties. "You'd think that she would know better than to let my sister _touch_ her."

Lincoln and the Weasley twins all laughed…

…just as the chimes of materialisers echoed through the air.

To everyone's shock, three groups of sixteen women each and a single group of twenty-six women appeared in clear spots all along Diagon Alley from the Leaky Cauldron entrance to the rear gate close to Leicester Square. Leading them was a stunningly beautiful Latino with silky black hair tied in a loose ponytail at the back of her neck and dark olive-brown eyes full of knowledge and passion. She was dressed in the camouflage uniform of a soldier of Spain, the single gold eight-point star of a _commandante_ embossed on her green shoulder epaulette slip-ons. "Get your wands from Gretta and start caring for any wounded you find!" she barked in accented English to the others — all of whom, Harry noted, were wearing white lanyards bearing the crimson crucifix of the Red Cross on their left arms — as she waved towards Margareta Hecht, who had pulled out the trunk she had obtained from Julia Hoffman earlier in the day at Buckingham Palace and had expanded it to full size. With that, she marched over to Elizabeth to get a full briefing about what had happened.

"Who's that?!" George asked.

"That's _Doña_ Rosa Fernández!"

Eyes locked on Rose as she came up, absently waving her hand over her torn shirt to make her decent again. "You know that woman, Healer Potter?" Lincoln asked.

"Yes! She's the oldest of the Black Maidens; she was one of Francisco Franco's earliest allies since she brought over a tonne of normal-born graduates from the Tarraco Academy — _Doña_ Rosa graduated from there in 1929 — to help fight for him! She's also the ONLY woman in history to have been awarded the Pour le Mérite Magique, the Order of Asturias AND the Sacred Order of Befana in her lifetime; it was ultimately all for her research in magical diseases even when she was busy caring for the Schwarze Mädchen in the field!" As the others gaped at her, the apprentice healer sighed. "By the way, guys, DON'T ask the poor woman her FULL name!" she hissed to the twins. "_Doña_ Rosa's no different than Dora! She was known to curse first…and she could be creative with her curses, too!"

"You're certainly right about that, Rose."

"Hey, Aunt Poppy!" Harry said with a smile as he leaned over to gently kiss Poppy Pomfrey's cheek, which made the matronly mediwitch smile. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was visiting Hamilton at St. Mungo's when Elaine put out the alert about this," Hogwarts' resident healer stated as she did a quick scan around with her own mage senses to detect any signs of serious casualties. "I see there are no dead."

"Except for the undead…and they are now all QUITE dead," Lincoln quipped, which made Poppy gaze on him before her jaw dropped in shocked recognition. "And I meant that as no joke. It's good to see you again, Madame…"

"_¡Madre de Dios!_ Poppy Pomfrey, is that you?!"

Poppy jolted…before she gasped with delight. "Rosalía Fernández!" she cried out with delight before she warmly embraced the senior healer of the Black Maidens. "I saw the news in the _Prophet_ that you all survived the Gates, but I couldn't believe it!"

"You two know each other?!" the Weasley twins exclaimed together.

Both healers laughed. "We met at a conference in Geneva after Rosalía was made a Knight of the Order of Asturias in 1935, just before she got dragged into that wretched civil war in Spain!" Poppy declared before she gazed on her friend from Villanueva de la Serena a hundred kilometres east of the Portuguese border in the province of Badajoz. "Do you have all your mediwitches with you?"

"_Sí_…but the more hands on deck, the better!"

Poppy nodded. "Good point! Come along, Rose!"

"Coming!" Rose called out as she followed the older healers to where the triage point was being set up now close to the front doors of Gringotts.

Watching the healers of the Black Maidens go to work, Harry nodded in satisfaction…before he tensed on feeling a hand gently squeeze his shoulder. "Well played, Harry," Severus Snape whispered to the younger man before he headed off.

The Man-Who-Won smirked before he nodded as Elaine came up to join him. "No fatalities on scene, Boss," the chief auror reported, the relief on her face quite apparent. She then thumbed the new arrivals. "Who are these girls?" she asked.

"The Black Maidens' healers and mediwitches," he answered as the Weasley twins headed back to their shop to inspect what damage might have been done. "Brigadier Gibbon's been given a Royal Warrant by the Queen," he then added in a whisper after he took a casual glance around with his mage sight to see if a certain reporter from the _Daily Prophet_ was in the area. Noting that a brightly coloured beetle was fluttering around close to the entrance to Flourish and Blotts heading in their direction, he wandlessly erected a privacy screen to ensure the transformed reporter couldn't overhear what he said next, "We've got a major vampire problem, Elaine. As of now, we're on…"

"_**ANIMAGUS FINITE!**_"

People cried out on hearing that scream from a beautiful brown-eyed woman with flowing rusty red hair, now dressed in a surplus British Army combat uniform with the wreathed crown of a warrant officer class 2 on her epaulette slip-ons…before they gaped as _**Rita Skeeter**_ of all people appeared out of nowhere, hovering in mid-air for a second before she crashed face-first into the cobblestone street! Without hesitation, the mediwitch that reversed her transformation — Suzanne Stuart, Harry recognized; she was a Hufflepuff from the NEWT class of 1935 who was a good friend of the first British member of the Black Maidens, Enid Geraint — called out "_**JORDENSKAGLE!**_" to summon chains made of solid marble to entwine the stunned reporter and keep her locked down; Harry could also sense that Suzanne's version of that charm came with a magical suppression hex, no doubt to keep prisoners secure before they could face interrogation.

"Suzanne! What's wrong?!" Elizabeth called out from her position close to Gringotts.

"We got a bloody spy here, Liz!" Suzanne called back, her brogue indicative of her origins as a native of Inverness. "An animagus; she was disguised as some sort of beetle! We need Linn here to find out what the devil she was doing!"

The leader of the Schwarze Mädchen moaned as many of the onlookers gasped on learning the darkest secret of the _Prophet_'s most notorious reporter. Sensing the crowd's mood — and realizing this was another opportunity to engender good will between her girls and the magicals of Britain — the native of Yorkshire then smiled as she pulled out the cell phone she had borrowed before coming down from the _Freedom_. "Master Staff Sergeant Hecht, _please_ tell me that Major Heinrich's toys are with her personal belongings!"

Grinning, Margareta reached into the chest to pull out a particular box. Opening it, she gazed inside before a churlish smile crossed her face. "It's all here, _meine Generalmajorin_!" she called out. "I'm sure _Frau Majorin_ Heinrich will be more than pleased to discuss the consequences of _**spying on innocent people**_ with our prisoner!"

The onlookers all blinked on hearing that statement from the native of Saxony-Anhalt before they all turned to glare wrathfully at the still-stunned Rita, who was now wondering why her Quick-Quotes Quill had suddenly replicated itself a dozen times, all of them now floating in circles in front of her eyes. "Right-oh!" Elizabeth said before she brought up the dialling function on her phone, then made a call up to orbit.

Watching this from nearby, Harry could only shake his head before he felt Elaine's hand squeeze his shoulder. "Was bound to happen sooner or later, Harry," the chief auror whispered before she headed off to look in on her people.

"Yeah," he breathed out.

"What's this about?" Lincoln asked.

"You remember all the problems you had with the press during the Civil War, sir?"

A cackle escaped the former president. "Son, I might have had it bad…but believe it or not, Jeff Davis had it a lot worse!" he advised. "Let me tell you…"

* * *

Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the forest to the west of the camp, minutes before…

"This place is horrible…!"

"Quiet!" _Porucznik_ Władysław Kowalski hissed as he gazed out towards the barracks-like building where magical prisoners of the SS were interrogated and killed during the time this ghastly place was in operation. Like the others of the Polish magical police who came with him to Oświęcim, he had on a special wrist bracelet that shielded his mind from the side effects of the huge node of death energy that still saturated these grounds decades after the Nazis were defeated and the few survivors of Auschwitz were liberated by the Red Army. And like his own boss back in Warsaw, the native of Lublin — which had another of these accursed places, Majdanek, located just two kilometres southeast of downtown! — often cursed the selfish fools in the _Magicznego Sejm_ for being such tightwads with money; even if the post-1989 reforms of the Polish magical government that went hand in hand with Solidarność's victory over the Marxists that ultimately took their orders from Moscow saw to it that all magicals in the Republic could vote for representatives in the magical parliament, the people they often elected cared more for personal gain than helping those who voted them in live safe and happy lives.

While he had been lucky to have been raised on the other side of Lublin from Majdanek, those normal-born magicals born and raised here in Oświęcim…!

"Włady, there are two people inside the interrogation hut!"

Władysław perked as his senior scout, _Starszy Odkrywca_ Danuta Ziębianka, walked over to join them; using an invisibility screen, she slipped out of the forest to approach the back door of the old interrogation hut. "Anything else there, Danu?" he hissed.

"Saw that the front door…!"

_KRACK!_

Everyone gasped as the roof of the interrogation hut was blasted clear up into the sky. As a half-dozen pairs of eyes followed that particular structure as it soared up several dozen metres into the air, Władysław moaned as he HOPED the Przyjaciel Smoków remembered that there WAS an International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in effect — major pain in the butt that it was at times! — and that the normal tourists visiting the main part of the Birkenau camp would probably notice the roof of a building flying up from practically NOWHERE. As he reached for his cell phone to put a call into Warsaw to get the memory charm experts out here, Danuta then gasped, "Who's that?!"

Eyes snapped over…

…before they gaped on seeing a man in a black martial arts gi with black belt calmly walk out the front door of the interrogation hut, carrying an unconscious woman dressed in normal civilians in his arms. As the visitors from Warsaw all blinked several times as they wondered what the heck was going on here, said fellow turned to gaze in their direction, revealing himself to be the most famous teenager on Earth today…as well as the adopted brother of the Earth Angel and the reborn Xiàolíng Emperor of Hàn atop that! "Moroboshi-san!" Danuta called out as she waved to get his attention; she and her co-workers — none of whom could speak Japanese — had charmed themselves with a universal translator spell so that they could be understood by the Friend of Dragons before they came to look in on her.

Moroboshi Ataru looked over before he smiled, calmly carrying his unconscious companion towards the group of magicals — no doubt, members of the local law enforcement — as the roof of the interrogation hut came down on the small crematorium building to its east with a rather loud _BANG!_ Wincing slightly as he stopped to look back, he shook his head before moving to join the visitors from Warsaw. "You have to excuse my friend there for a moment, minna-san," he said as he gently laid the woman down against a tree. "She was surprised to note you haven't done any sort of cleansing here, so she's having her staff absorb some of the dark ki and magic in this place."

Immediately, the medic working with Władysław's team, _Uzdrowiciel Uczeń_ Patrycja Madejówna, drew her wand to commence an examination. She then blinked. "This is a vampire!"

"Yeah," Ataru calmly stated as he thumbed behind him. "I just ripped the throat out of her lover inside the hut. Her brain decided to take a vacation when that happened, so I suspect there was some sort of soul-bond involved. Mizuho doesn't want her destroyed; we'll get her up to the _Błyskawica_ to get her body-swap done, then give Janina-chan — that's her name, Janina Neumann — over to some lady named Margareta Hecht."

The magical policemen all perked on hearing that name. "Wasn't Neumann one of the magicals that was assigned to this place when the Nazis were here?!" Danuta demanded.

"Indeed she was, my friend," a woman's voice then hailed, which made everyone turn as Inada Mizuho came up to join them, the Staff of Gihan held to her side. "She and her beloved were — at the behest of a most vile creature who is seeking to destroy all our kinswomen — trying to concoct a disgusting potion to see all the death energy in this place absorbed into ebony meson crystals so that it could be used by their leader in such a campaign. Fortunately, they didn't count on the lost spirits of this place calling upon my beloved Ataru to deal with them while cloaked in the armour bestowed to him by the Wise Lord." She then gazed back at the wrecked interrogation hut. "And I do apologize for making such a mess, but trying to NOT allow a massive earthquake to strike this place while I was allowing my staff to claim some of that energy caused a bit of a backlash from that hideous potion. You'll find _Herr_ Mandel's corpse inside, along with all their belongings in case you need to have them examined back in Warsaw."

"And the roof?" Władysław warily asked.

Mizuho blinked before she gazed to the south and the main part of the Birkenau camp. "I do believe the protections placed on this place from normal eavesdroppers years ago by our Russian friends have served their purpose, Master Władysław," she calmly stated, finding herself stuttering as she tried to properly pronounce his name; save for a few tongues like English and Korean, foreign languages had never been her forte. "I don't sense a single person out there having noticed what just happened here."

The visitors from Warsaw all breathed out in relief; much that they did understand the need for the Statute of Secrecy, most magicals in Poland — even the people trained for the task — found performing memory modifications to be quite distasteful. "Though someone on the outside's GOING to notice something here sooner or later," Ataru then added before waving around. "You feel all this ki here?! Given enough time, you'll end up facing one mother of an earthquake or some other natural disaster hitting this place WITHOUT any outside help! Why the hell haven't you got the exorcists to come here to clean this place out?!"

"Money!" all the Poles chanted at once.

The visitors from Tomobiki and Shiroiwa (in another dimension) blinked on hearing that before they exchanged a look. "Can you do it?" Ataru wondered.

"I'm not too sure if I have the control to do it without causing the catastrophe you just described," Mizuho admitted. "What about the Lady Negako? Can she do it?"

"She won't have the patience for it…and she never gave a shit about that damned secrecy statute in the first place," he said with a shake of the head. "Onē-san might do like she and Kyech did back in February with that mana node under the Tarōzakura."

"One gigantic geyser of energy causing a wide-spread, low-key earthquake. Minor but still noticeable," she noted, which made the Poles all cringe as they imagined what would need to happen to keep the truth about such an event secret from the normals. "What of the Lady Dean or the Lady Heather? Perhaps the Lady Jessica could assist. Her powers force her to consume evil energy to remain alive and sane. They're going to be involved sooner or later with the business concerning the Black Maidens."

He shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask."

"I doubt you'll get far with any of the War Hawks, Moroboshi-san," Patrycja muttered. "They HATE being forced to clean up after other people's messes!"

"Then I would highly suggest you prevail on your leaders to do something about this place — not to mention the other death camp sites — as soon as possible, my friend!" Mizuho stated as she waved behind her to the wrecked interrogation hut. "Even if I was TRYING to be careful here, look at the damage I ended up doing! I know you made this place a memorial to the ghastly crimes that occurred here, but even **_I_** can see what still needs to be done!"

"Well, we could try to persuade Onē-san to visit them in Warsaw."

She gazed on Ataru. "Why do you propose that?"

He icily grinned. "She's very good at laying down the facts of Life."

A hum escaped the would-be warrior-priestess, then she nodded. "A good point, Dearest," she breathed out. "In the meantime, let us go up to the bright _Błyskawica_ and help the Lady Janina reclaim her humanity back. Please excuse us, my friends."

And with a flash of energy, Ataru, Mizuho and Janina vanished. The visitors from Warsaw all blinked before Danuta gaped. "Did she just call him 'Dearest?!'"

The others stared wide-eyed at her…

**_To be continued…_**

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **Vernichtungslager** — Extermination camp; **Konzentrationslager** — Concentration camp; **HaShoah** — Literally "Catastrophe," one of the two Jewish names for the Holocaust (the other name is **Churben** ["Destruction"]); **Totenkopf** — Literally "skull," this was the name given to the skull-and-crossbones insignia of the SS…and serves as the root word of **Totenkopfverbände**, the "Death's Head Units" who were the people directly in charge of all concentration camp operations; **Obersturmführer** — Literally "Senior Assault Leader," the SS equivalent of a Navy sub-lieutenant/Army lieutenant/Air Force flying officer (NATO rank code OF-1); **Spezielle Vernichtungeinheit** — Special Extermination Unit; **Ministerstwo Magii** — Ministry of Magic; **Haupthelfer** — Chief Assistant; **Helferinnenkorps** — Women's Assistant Corps; **Unmenschlich** — Inhuman or fiendish; **Magiczne Policja Republiki** — Magical Police of the Republic; **Przyjaciel Smoków** — Friend of Dragons; **Ikhorh Vrasmos** — Boil the Ichor; **Commandante** — Literally "commander" and normally translated as "commandant," this is the Spanish title for an Army major (NATO rank code OF-3); **Madre de Dios** — Mother of God; **Animagus Finite** — A cancelling spell (_Finite_) designed to reverse an animagus transformation; **Jordenskagle** — Earth Chains; **Porucznik** — Literally "messenger," this is the Polish rank title for an Army lieutenant (NATO rank code OF-1); **Magicznego Sejm** — Magical Diet; **Starszy Odkrywca** — Literally "senior explorer," this is a title derived from the ranks of Polish members of the Boy Scouts (in the MPR, this rank would be the rough equivalent of a police chief inspector); **Uzdrowiciel Uczeń** — Apprentice Healer.

2) Notes about the magical schools mentioned here:

As hinted at in Part One concerning the **Nurmengard Magic Academy** (in German, _Akademie der Magie Nurmengard_), thanks to the very diversified nature of German society pre-1871 where there was no one single government controlling the whole territory — during the height of the Holy Roman Empire, its territory was divided into HUNDREDS of effectively independent nation-states — the presence of multiple small schools of magic serving various parts of Germany even to the days of the Third Reich is understandable. **Wilhelm Mandel**'s alma mater, the **Greifinswald Academy of Sorcery** (_Akademie der Zauberei Greifinswald_), was the magical school for the **Duchy of Pomerania** which lay on the Baltic Sea coast in modern-day northeast Germany and northwest Poland; this duchy existed from 1121-1637 as an element of the Holy Roman Empire before its territory was split between Sweden and Brandenburg-Prussia (later Prussia) in the wake of the **Thirty Years' War** (1618-48). Eventually, Prussia took full control of the territory of old Pomerania in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars. Greifinswald (literally "forest of griffins," named after the heraldic symbol of the royal house of Pomerania [a red griffin]) remained an active school of magic until the end of World War Two, when it was shut down by the Soviets in the wake of the **Battle of Greifinswald** on Sunday 22 April 1945.

The **Gniezdno Academy of Sorcery** (_Gniezdno Akademia Magii_) is named in tribute to **Gniezno**, a city in Wielkopolska ("Greater Poland") Province in west-central Poland about fifty kilometres east of Posnań. A city that has been around since at least the Tenth Century, Gniezno — the name "Gniezdno" is the medieval version of that name — is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop who also serves as the **Primate of Poland**.

Spain's national magical academy, the **Tarraco Academy of Magic** (_la Escuela de Magia en Tarraco_), is located near the city of Tarragona on the Mediterranean coast of Catalonia about sixty kilometres west-southwest of Barcelona. The name "Tarraco" is taken from Roman times. The site of the **Colonia Iulia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco** ("Julian Colonial Town of Triumph at Tarraco") in modern-day Tarragona was first seized by the old Roman Republic in 217 B.C.E.; it would eventually become the capital of the republican province of **Hispania Citerior** ("Nearer Hispania") and would later serve as the capital of the imperial province of **Hispania Tarraconensis** ("Taragonian Hispania"). The Roman city would be conquered by the Visigoths in 476 C.E., though the conquerors would leave the city pretty much as it was. Tarraco would later be conquered by the Muslims in or around 713-714.

3) The Soviet **Naródnyj Komissariát Mágičeskie Del** (literally "People's Commissariat for Magical Affairs," short-formed **NKMD**) was the USSR's magical ministry during the time of Iósef Stálin's rule. The name of this organization is a play-off on the term **Naródnyj Komissariát Vnútrennix Del** (**NKVD**), which literally translates "People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs"; this was the Soviet secret police from 1934-54 and the precursor agency of the KGB.

4) The **Hakenkreuzflagge** (literally "hooked cross flag") was the name for the Nazi Party's crimson red banner defaced with an off-centre white sphere defaced in turn with a tilted, right-facing black swastika. In 1935, the _Hakenkreuzflagge_ was made the national flag of Germany and served as such until 1945.

5) **Inada Mizuho** is one of the minor characters of _Battle Royale_. As I've noted elsewhere, the characterization of her and her fellow _BR_ characters in the stories of this universe is based on the American English translation of the manga series released by TokyoPop between 2000-05 as written by **Keith Giffen** (born 1952), the famous comic book writer/artist that worked on DC Comics' _Legion of Super-Heroes_ in the 1980s and 1990s. I use the term "would-be warrior-priestess" whenever I refer to Mizuho since she — a _Dungeons and Dragons_ role-playing gamer who suffered from dementia and schizophrenia and came to see herself as the mortal avatar of "elder gods" such as **Ahura Mazdā**, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism — called herself the **Warrior-Priestess Prexia Dikianne Mizuho**. In the manga, Mizuho survived almost right to the end; she would be struck down at the end of the manga story "Faith" (manga episode #79).

Her weapon is the **Staff of Gihan**, a 17,000-year old _haijo-ju_ (literally "will of the people" but more poetically translated "voice of the people's desire") from Sagussa that was essentially constructed as the ultimate personal weapons system. It has the ability to tap into the Power of the Te'a Itself — in effect, the very power of the Big Bang that created the Universe — to do anything the controller might desire…only limited by imagination and the potential influence of other objects of meson like the Power Jewel used by Dean Raeburn. The Staff first made its appearance in _The Senior Year_ story "Great Father Ataru Stage Two: Remembrance." It also appeared in my story _Lonely Souls_.

6) **Zaraϑuštra Spitāma** (also known as "Zoroaster") is the mythical founder of **Zoroastrianism**, one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. All the details of Zaraϑuštra's life have not been proven as historical fact, including things like the time of his life and his place of residence; scholars believe he may have lived between the Eighteenth and Sixth Centuries B.C.E. and his homeland of **Airyanəm Vaējah** ("Land of the Aryans") has never been pinpointed with any accuracy beyond somewhere in central Asia. It is he who is credited as being the author of the **Yasna Haptaŋhāiti** ("Worship in Seven Chapters") and the **Gāϑās** (a collection of seventeen hymns composing 238 versus which focus on questions of the divine influence on truth and the spirit of righteous); all of which were collected into the Zoroastrian bible, the **Avesta**. Zaraϑuštra is known to modern non-Zoroastrians as being the inspiration of Friedrich Nietzsche's novel _Also Sprach Zarathustra_ ("Thus Spoke Zaraϑuštra") released in 1883-85, not to mention the tone poem opera named after it written in 1896 by Richard Wagner. The initial fanfare, "Sunrise," became the theme song for the famous 1968 film _2001: A Space Odyssey_.

As an aside, **Avestan** (the language by which all Zoroastrian holy texts were written; the name of the language is based on the word "Avesta") is a language that employs **_thirty-seven_** distinct consonant and **_sixteen_** distinct vowel sounds. Because of that, the standard Romanization of Avestan has to employ more than the twenty-six letter Latin alphabet can provide even with macrons to represent long vowels. Thus, we get the following:

The "**ϑ**" symbol — one of the lower-case versions of the Greek **Θ** (_theta_) — represents the voiceless dental fricative like the first sound in _th__in_;

The "**š**" represents the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative such as the first sound in _sh__eep_;

The "**ā**" represents the long open central unrounded vowel like the vowel in the American English pronunciation of _c__o__t_;

The "**ə**" personifies the short mid-central (or **schwa**) vowel similar to the second vowel sound in _sof__a_; and

The "**ŋ**" represents the velar nasal consonant similar to the end consonants in each syllable of _si__ng__i__ng_.

7) Moroboshi Ataru's earlier encounter with a vampire occurred in the _Yatsura_ manga stories "Down For the Count" and "Blood From a Stone" (manga episodes #101-102).

8) As noted above, the Polish Ministry of Magic divides the nation into sectors and sub-sectors to help them pinpoint areas of interest. The sectors are based on the several provinces (in Polish, **województwo** [plural _województwa_]; normally rendered in English as **voivodeship**) that form the first-level sub-national government divisions. The sub-sectors are based on the counties or county-level cities within those provinces. Thus, the six Nazi extermination camps based in the territory of Poland during World War Two are located as follows:

**Treblinka** — Located in Ostrów Mazowiecka County of Mazovia (Sector "Maz", sub-sector "Ost");

**Majdanek** — Located in the city of Lublin of the province of the same name (City sector "Lub");

**Sobibór** — Located in Włodawa County of the province of Lublin (Sector "Lub," sub-sector "Włod");

**Bełżec** — Located in Tomaszów Lubelski County of the province of Lublin (Sector "Lub," sub-sector "Tom");

**Chełmno** — Located in Koło County of the province of Wielkopolska (Sector "Wie," sub-sector "Ko"); and

**Oświęcim** (AKA **Auschwitz**) — Located in Oświęcim County in the province of Małopolska ("Lesser Poland") (Sector "Mał," sub-sector "Oś").

9) Like many Slavic cultures, the Poles use different spellings for family names dependant on gender. Hence, we have the situation of the sister of Captain **Stanisław Gorazdowski** (introduced in Part 55 of _Phoenix From the Ashes_) introduced here, **Halinka Gorazdowska**. Even more, a woman's marital status can influence the spelling of the family name. The traditional rule was this: Unmarried women whose base family names end in consonants (save "-g") get "**-ówna**" added to the name, while vowel-ending names and names ending in "-g" get "**-anka**"…while married women get "**-owa**" and "**-ina**"/"**-yna**" respectively. Although these suffixes are still used by some people, mostly the elderly and in rural areas, they are now becoming outdated and there is a tendency to use the same form of a nominal surname for both a man and a woman.

10) The **Fire Flowers** spoken of here are based on Polish folk legends. It was said that to find this powerful plant the seeker had to enter a forest before midnight on the **Eve of Kupala** (the night of 6-7 July in the Gregorian calendar; the night of 23-24 June in the old Julian calendar). The flower would climb up the stalk of a fern tree. Precisely at midnight, it would bloom so brightly that no one could look directly at it. In order to harvest it, a circle had to be drawn around it and the seeker had to deal with demons trying to distract him/her from doing so. It was said that if you answered the voices or faltered during the task, the fire flower would sacrifice its own life. Anyone possessing this flower was reported to have gained the ability to read minds, find treasure and repel all evils…which would made the magical flower in the universe of this story quite valuable worldwide in both potions and materials used in warding.

11) The issue with **Azu Kakazu** and the other gynoids mentioned above was depicted in _A Nice Quiet Place_.

12) **Sanuki** was the old provincial name for what is now known as **Kagawa Prefecture** on the island of Shikoku. As noted above, in _Battle Royale_, the town of **Shiroiwa** is located in Kagawa-ken.

13) The **Shadowlands** spoken of by the ghosts of Auschwitz here is based on the dark hinterland between the mortal and divine introduced in the role-playing game _Wraith: The Oblivion_, created in 1994 and is part of the **World of Darkness** multiverse created by White Wolf Publishing. I was referred to this by my good friend **Robert Geiger** — who wrote a couple side-stories for _TSY_ and has suggested story ideas for me for over a decade — via the 1997 source book _Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah_ (ISBN 1-56504-651-X), written by Jonathan Blacke and Robert Hatch. In the universe of this story, the Shadowlands form part of the divine energy field that can be perceived by Sagussans in their mind which is known by the catch-all term **Te'a** ("That Which Is Above mortal understanding").

14) The noble houses of the Wizengamot noted on here:

**The Barony of Hampstead** (Hester Selwyn) is named after a neighbourhood in the London borough of Camden, located over six kilometres northwest of Charing Cross.

**The Barony of Whitley** (Elaine Mithwold) is named after **Whitley Bay**, a seaside town in Tyne and Wear in northeast England ten kilometres east of northeast from Newcastle upon Tyne).

**The Earldom of Wells** (Timaea Crouch) is named after a cathedral city in Somerset at the south end of the Mendip Hills fifteen kilometres south of Bristol.

15) This part introduces the Spanish and Italian versions of the Order of Merlin:

The **Order of Asturias** (in Spanish, _Orden de Asturias_) is named after the **Kingdom of Asturias** in what today is northern Spain; this was the nation that, in 722 C.E., launched the **Reconquista** ("reconquest") against the Muslims that conquered the Iberian Peninsula eleven years earlier. It is divided thus (with the equivalent Order of Merlin post-nominal letters as comparison):

**MO3** — **Knight of the Order of Asturias** (_Caballero de la Orden de Asturias_) (short-form **Cab. d.l. O d. A**);  
**MO2** — **Knight Commander of the Order of Asturias** (_Comendador de la Orden de Asturias_) (**Com. d.l. O d. A**); and  
**MO1** — **Grand Cross Knight Commander of the Order of Asturias** (_Gran Cruz de Comendador de la Orden de Asturias_) (**GC d. Com. d.l. O d. A**).

The **Sacred Order of Befana** (in Italian, _Sacro Ordine della Befana_) is named in tribute to **Befana**, a witch from Tuscany during the late Twelfth Century who both fought against evil and helped heal people from plagues regardless if the victims were magical or normal…and in real life, is the Italian folk equivalent to Santa Claus. The order was established by Prince Philip of Swabia (then the Margrave of Tuscany) and blessed by Pope Innocent III (hence the title "Sacred"). Like the other magical orders introduced in this story, it is divided into three levels:

**MO3** — **Knight of the Sacred Order of Befana** (_Cavaliere del Sacro Ordine della Befana_) (**Cav. d. SO d. B**);  
**MO2** — **Officer of the Sacred Order of Befana** (_Ufficiale del Sacro Ordine di Befana_) (**Uff. d. SO d. B**); and  
**MO1** — **Commander of the Sacred Order of Befana** (_Comandante del Sacro Ordine della Befana_) (**Comm. d. SO d. B**).

As an aside, those awarded the Order of Asturias in Spain have the right to be addressed by the honorific **Don** (for men) or **Doña** (for women); the term is a diminutive of the Latin _dominus_ ("master") and is best known as the honorific given to the real name of the famous pulp fiction novel character **Zorro** (**_Don_**** Diego de la Vega**). Note that _Don_ or _Doña_ can be used with a person's given name or full name…but NEVER with just the family name. Also note that the standard Spanish honorifics **Señor** ("Mister" [short-form **Sr.**]), **Señora** ("Mrs." [short-form **Sra.**]) or **Señorita** ("Miss" [short-form **Srta.**]) always comes BEFORE _Don_ or _Doña_; in those cases, the basic honorifics are initialized, i.e. **Srta. ****_Doña_**** Rosalía María Fernández de Calderón y Jiménez de Córdoba** (which is **Rosa Fernández**'s full name, by the way). In conjunction with that, winners of the equivalent awards of the Order of Asturias elsewhere like the Order of Merlin are addressed with the same honorifics, i.e. **_Don_**** Harry James Potter**.

16) **Solidarność** is the short-name for the **Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy "Solidarność"** ("Independent Self-governing Trade Union 'Solidarity'"), the famous Polish trade union federation that was formed in 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard under the leadership of **Lech Wałęsa** (born 1943) that became the first non-communist labour union in the Warsaw Pact. Despite attempts by the Polish leadership to put Solidarność down during the early 1980s, constant pressure by Wałęsa's people would eventually force the communists to submit to negotiations that saw semi-free elections in the summer of 1989…and, once all support from Moscow was eliminated that fall, a coalition led by Solidarność helped Wałęsa become President. These days, Solidarność is still an active force in Polish society even if the actual numbers are a fraction of what they had been in the mid-1980s (a half-million today versus approximately ten million then).


	9. The Maidens Receive Inheritances

Diagon Alley, two hours after lunch…

"There you go, _niño_. Does that feel a little better?"

The cute boy in the arms of the wet-cheeked middle-aged witch that had been taking the attention of Rosa Fernández for the last twenty minutes smiled as he gazed on his just-healed hand. He had been scratched by one of the vampires who had tried to rampage through Knockturn — which, despite it having been considerably rehabilitated over the last decade, still served as the poorer and darker district of wizarding Britain — before the Hollows dragged the creature off for destruction. "Yes," he whispered.

"What do you say to the nice healer?" his mother urged.

The boy smiled. "Thank you!"

Rosa smiled in turn as she conjured a lollipop for him to suck on. As the now-grinning child was taken away, the senior healer of the Black Maidens could only shake her head as she gazed around her. Only a small team of mediwitches were still in Diagon helping with casualties. The number of injuries had been far lighter than what could have happened hadn't Elizabeth Gibbon summoned the Hollows and only seven people had required emergency blood-purges before they were shipped to St. Mungo's, effectively ensuring they wouldn't be turned.

Right now, the pioneer company of the Fourth Battalion was on the scene, under the direction of one of the Schwarze Mädchen's most unique members, _Majorin_ Jade Xìyù Speer. In looks, the native of Mannheim in old Baden was classically Chinese: Wavy raven hair tied in a simple ponytail that went to mid-back, a perfectly-shaped Oriental face and gorgeous gold-pink skin. Seeing such a person wearing the camouflage uniform of an officer in the _Deutsches Heer_ had made almost all the bystanders — even those who knew some things about the Black Maidens — gape in shock and surprise, especially when said officer began barking out orders in fluent German to get her people to work.

The only hint at the fact that Jade had a German father — Rudolf Speer had been part of the military mission to China that had helped that nation's armed forces modernize after the collapse of the Qīng Dynasty in 1912; Jade's mother Lú Qìnglíng was an interpreter then serving the legendary founder of the modern Republic of China, Doctor Sūn Yìxiān, who had saved Rudolf's life from a mudslide during monsoon season — was her eyes, which were a deep sea blue in lieu of the brown-black Orientals normally had. She was also one of the more highly decorated members of the Black Maidens. A veteran of the Spanish Civil War, she was a curse-breaker and ward-breaker trained by Gringotts who had earned her gold Wound Badge for all the times she personally led her teams into wrecking defensive wards around hard targets. She had also been on the raid on Azkaban in 1939 and the attack on the Ministry of Magic in London two years later; Jade Speer would end the war by rallying all the pioneers — even those too badly hurt to have normally taken to the field — to help destroy the World-Gate during the final battle at Nurmengard.

Jade was now having her team of a hundred and nine curse-breakers, warders and magical construction engineers do a full inspection of all the structures in Diagon and Knockturn. Watching the other officer, Rosa — who doubled as the brigade's in-house psychiatrist — had been surprised to note the look of disbelief on Jade's face; no doubt, the pioneer company commander had been taken aback by the fact that many more buildings in Diagon and Knockturn beyond Gringotts were far sturdier than she might have expected for a traditional European wizarding enclave. Even more so, she and her subordinates were advising some of the shopkeepers on ways of improving their property's defences against things like thieves and the like, to say anything of potential intrusion by unexpected sources. While there were some older people who looked on Jade and her friends with wariness — no doubt, they had been alive during the war when Tsukuyomi's forces had been running rampant over Asia to cripple European efforts to stop Grindelwald — younger people and those who had been personal friends of the British members of the Schwarze Mädchen like Tom Dodderidge were treating the slender yet muscular Chinese-German woman with the respect she deserved.

"We all finished, Rosa?"

"_Sí_," the healer stated as she watched a dazed-looking Elizabeth Gibbon and a head-shaking Jessica Gibbon step down from Gringotts, the goblin guards bowing in respect to the two English-born combat witches. "What happened, Elisa?"

"Oh, nothing much, Rosa," Jessica said with a wry smile. "It just turns out that there's a family seat in the Wizengamot that's ours for the claiming."

Rosa blinked several times as her mind tried to wrap around that before she smirked. "Well, that was long proven…though ironic given what we were involved in before we wound up on the _Freedom_," the native of Badajoz noted. "Normal-born magicals…" — the Black Maidens had been the first group to adopt a policy of complete rejection when it came to nicknames for non-magicals such as "muggle" — "…are always descent to one extent or another from an extinct magical line. Was anyone else so blessed?"

"Don't know," Elizabeth breathed out. "But I will have everyone go through Gringotts to do inheritance blood tests just in case. While it doesn't matter so much in places like Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Portugal these days, there are still inherited seats in the magical parliaments in Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Spain, not to mention the smaller states like Luxembourg, Lichtenstein and Monaco. If the seats can be claimed, let them be claimed." She then winked at Rosa. "All the goblins care about is that the vaults are returned to active service so they can start charging bankers' fees and earning interest; treaties wouldn't let them…oh, my GOD!"

Rosa jolted before spinning around to see what caught the Yorkshire native's attention…

"Shitfire! What the devil happened here?!"

On hearing that familiar voice with its drawling accent, the Black Maidens all turned to gape in shock at the raven-haired tomboyish woman with deep blue eyes now walking towards them from the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. In a casual business suit with slacks and an open-collar button shirt, she had the silver-ringed star badge of a United States Marshal on her jacket tunic over her left breast pocket. She didn't have a wand in hand, but there was the obvious shoulder-mounted holster for a gun under her jacket, not to mention a wand holster strapped to her left arm, tucked under her jacket sleeve. Then again, recalling what this youthful-looking veteran of the first open war against the daywalker vampires in known history had been like when she personally led a battalion of highly-trained strike wizards on Nurmengard that summer afternoon at the side of Albus Dumbledore, a company's worth of hit-wizards from Britain, the War Hawks and the Immortals, the North Carolinian witch didn't really need a wand.

"Where in God's Name did you come from, _Generalmajorin_ Bean?!" Jade immediately challenged as the other Schwarze Mädchen all tensed.

The veteran of three wars held up her hands in a show of peace; she knew these girls had effectively been transported through time — thanks to the wonders of cryogenetic suspension — from 1945 to 2010, so the old animosities were obviously still quite fresh to them. "Nice to see you too, China Girl!" Mollie Bean said with a wink, smiling at Jade's addressing her with the equivalent German rank title to the American's "theatre" rank of brigadier general in the Army of the United States at the end of World War Two. She then gazed in amusement at the Gibbon twins. "Now, Lizzie! This ain't dang fair!" she drawled with an exaggerated Carolinian accent. "You and your friends went and threw a party with them carpetbagger daywalkers, then forgot to invite me! I thought you Limeys were civilized!"

"And you Johnny Rebs believe you had the corner on civilization?!" Jade sneered back.

"Now, Major Speer, that's enough," a strange voice chided, which made people smile as a certain former American president came up from the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. "Hello, Mollie. Don't tell me they forced you away from your kids in Salem just for me."

"Sadly, they did, Mister Lincoln. But given that you and General Gibbon's girls are involved in this, I won't have to stay too far away from my classroom. Don't want the new kids I'm preparing for the Mistresses and Masters Classes to burn the place down while I'm across the pond here in England," Mollie stated as she gazed on Abraham Lincoln. "Did you get any prisoners or did you cut down all the slimy critters?"

"No prisoners…but no escapees, fortunately," Lincoln stated as he warmly grasped the younger woman's hand, leaning over to tenderly kiss her cheek. Noting all the onlookers — even some of the Black Maidens — beaming at the sight of the Rail-Splitter reuniting with the young magical marshal who had been his only real companion during the Score and Four, he added, "Seems our mysterious dragon lover with the energy staff — you know of her?" At Mollie's nod, he waved around. "Seems she closed and sealed the doors behind them to prevent them from escaping to warn Adam Sewell I'm in country now. You heard?"

"I did…and I had to spend an hour restarting my heart on knowing THAT son of a bitch is still 'alive!'" Mollie noted as Elizabeth came over to join them while Jessica moved to get an update from Jade. "Saw that the floo and apparition points here are shut down and the aurors are keeping people here. Can't keep this up forever, though."

"Not really forever, Mollie," Elizabeth said as she offered her hand…then gaped as she felt the aura of a sister Avalonian when Mollie grasped it. "How…?"

"I was the first ever Terran-turned-Avalonian. Got my body swapped years before that became a common thing with folks like Harry Potter's sister," Mollie explained. "A really nice fella from Phentax Two saved me from some carpetbagger daywalker just after I went to the seventy-fifth anniversary reunion of Gettysburg in '38; critter found out I 'betrayed' the South and wanted me dead. Howard O'Connor — that was my rescuer's Earth name; forgot what his original name was — was more American than Niphentaxian; shame he died when Phentax Twelve was made to 'do a Krypton' thanks to Miss Negako, her brother and sisters and their friends from Noukiios and Yehisril. Howard's grandson was an observer in Washington state when the Noukiites swept in to clear them out; he's living on Tengsei these days. So who saved you and yours, Liz?"

"Most likely _Rittmeister_ von Taserich," the commander of the Schwarze Mädchen replied as she crossed her arms. "No proof; there was no letter attached to the cryogenetic chambers we were in when the Vinur Drekar found us yesterday morning at Nurmengard."

"I'll go over to speak to the immortals who are now at Nurmengard about Josef, General," Lincoln stated. "If anyone has a hope of knowing what he did, it might be one of them."

"Mind if I tag along, sir?" Mollie offered. "Never got the chance to go visit the place in recent years since the anniversary normally falls near the end of the spring term and I'm too busy in the summer with tutorials to come across the pond."

"Delighted to have your company, my dear."

He offered his arm, which she took. They then headed off. Jade and Jessica walked over to stand beside their brigade commander as they watched them go. "Never understood her," the Chinese-German magical combat engineer commented.

"Why?" Elizabeth asked.

"She's a normal-born from North Carolina. Even if there was Union support all throughout the South in those days, why did she stay loyal when her friends fought under Lee?"

"She was a magical marshal before the war, Jade," a voice answered from behind them, making all three turn as Harry Potter came up to join them. "They swear oaths on their magic to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution when they take federal office in America. Mollie couldn't defy that if she didn't want to lose her magic. And they've never had individual state magical ministries in America, not like it was in Germany during the time of the Holy Roman Empire."

The three members of the Schwarze Mädchen nodded in understanding. "So what's going on with Miss Skeeter, Harry?" Jessica asked with an amused grin. "Is Linn being mean to her?"

He smirked. "Your friend could probably have scared Bellatrix Lestrange — if not Tom Riddle himself — in their prime, Jess," the Man-Who-Won answered. "Hard to believe that such a plain girl could be such a demon when interrogating someone."

"And that surprises you, Harry?" a familiar Weasley twin asked.

"After all…" the other twin spoke up.

"…the lovely Linn…"

"…is clearly a relative…"

"…of old Ikari Gendō himself!"

Elizabeth blinked. "Who on Earth is that?"

Fred and George blinked before they smirked as they exchanged knowing looks. "Forge?"

"Yeah, Gred?"

"Do you realize our new friends have not been introduced to the joys of anime?"

"Indeed I do, dear brother. That HAS to be corrected right away!"

"Oh, indeed it must!"

"'Anime?!'" Elizabeth and Jade wondered as Jessica's eyebrow arched.

"Do you REALLY want to introduce them to THAT, guys?" Harry wondered.

The twins laughed…

* * *

Rosa Lee Teabag, that moment…

Right now, it was no laughing matter for Rita Skeeter.

She had found herself in Diagon earlier today investigating the news that the leader of the infamous Black Maidens herself — accompanied by her senior combat witch, the very woman responsible for the deaths of dozens of Ministry officials in that catastrophic raid in 1941 that forever stripped Britain of all its colonial magical warriors! — had been brought to the Leaky Cauldron by none other than **_Harry Potter_**. Naturally, Rita was attracted to such an odd circumstance. For the longest time, she had dogged Harry's footsteps, determined to finally get the one single clue she needed to unlock the Chinese puzzle that was the Man-Who-Won so she could pay him and his allies — especially Hermione Granger — back for the crap they unleashed on the _Daily Prophet_'s top reporter years ago. And despite her attempts at getting the upper hand over Harry and his friends, they always kept one step ahead of her even after the victory against Voldemort; despite the coming of peace, they never let their guard down as they moved to unleash insane changes on wizarding Britain in the wake of such a spectacular triumph. And while many of those changes had been accepted wholesale by the general public, their ultimate purpose never made any sense at all to Rita. That — in her experience — loudly hinted that there was a _**big**_ secret somewhere that needed to be exposed to the light of day.

Albus Dumbledore had those secrets.

Tom Riddle had those secrets.

Logically, Harry Potter and his friends must possess those secrets as well.

For the greater good of wizarding Britain — not to mention Rita's future as a newspaper reporter and a writer — those secrets had to be revealed to all.

So she came to Diagon…

…and wound up witnessing something she had NOT been prepared for:

An honest-to-goodness battle between _**vampires**_ and the _**Hollows**_!

And while it had been wrapped up very quick thanks to the surprising presence of the legendary Rail-Splitter himself — not to mention a half-dozen Schwarze Mädchen as well as some of Harry's friends from the Defence Association and the Order of the Phoenix…which _screamed_ out to Rita that the Man-Who-Won had known about the vampires' attack ahead of time; if THAT got out, it could see the man charged with reckless endangerment…which would DEFINITELY sell papers! — with no harm done to bystanders, being publicly EXPOSED as an animagus by one of the Black Maidens had NOT been on Rita's work schedule.

If THAT wasn't bad enough, the dazed Rita found herself dragged to this dreary tea shop by the aurors and Grindelwald's reborn warriors, then presented to a tall yet shapely woman with shaggy, long dark brown hair and brown eyes behind the gawkiest pair of reading glasses the Ravenclaw alumnus had EVER seen! Even more, while the majority of the veterans of Grindelwald's War who had come to Diagon to clean up after the daywalkers' attack — which WAS a good thing in Rita's mind; she sure as hell didn't want to be turned or killed by one of those undead monsters — had been in those hideous camouflage fatigue uniforms worn by soldiers when they went to play in the boonies, this woman was smartly dressed in a modern business suit with white turtleneck sweater that accentuated both her height and her flowing curves spectacularly. Said woman also sported a small grove of military-like badges on her left breast, topped with the first class Iron Cross and the undress ribbons of the Pour le Mérite Magique and another medal, not to mention the standard wreathed crossed wand badge marking her as a veteran of the Magische Reichsarmee.

Once those brown eyes locked on Rita's green orbs, the reporter found herself frozen in place as those glasses seemed to glitter in the early afternoon light.

It was that glitter that made Rita realize who this woman was.

The "Nasty Nag of Northeim" herself, _Majorin_ Linn Heinrich.

Officially, the honours graduate from the Trischen Academy of Magic (Mistresses Class of 1935) on the island of the same name in the Elbe estuary near Hamburg had served as the chief interrogator of the Black Maiden Brigade. Not a very proficient magical duellist in comparison to some of her more famous contemporaries, Linn earned her reputation by using every form of mental torture known to both the magicals and the normals at the time to get whatever information she desired for the use of her leaders. She was a grandmaster at Legilimency and other magical mind arts, having used them ruthlessly in her duties; some of the veterans of the Allied and Soviet magical forces that had gone up against the Schwarze Mädchen who had faced down this woman spent YEARS after the Battle of the Gates in long-term care at places like St. Mungo's recovering from what she had done to them. And no matter what anyone tried to keep things secret from her, Linn _always_ got what she wanted.

Sixty-five years in cryogenetic suspension — unlike many other purebloods in Britain, Rita knew what terms like that meant; she hadn't been a Ravenclaw for nothing, after all! — hadn't dulled this monster's edge one bit.

And with her being an Avalonian now…

"Rita Lorraine Skeeter."

Rita's voice caught in her throat as the other woman's voice — sensuous and full of throaty richness that made the reporter swoon with orgasmic envy; on sensing her reacting _that_ way, the native of Merseyside felt her heart seize as she hoped beyond hope that her interrogator wouldn't focus on THAT! — washed over her…before she seemed to deflate as the chronologically older woman sat back, the glitter in her glasses vanishing. "Born on the third of March in 1951 in Liverpool," Linn added to the first words she had said since Rita had fully awoke. "Pureblood from a loyal family, no noble lineage. Currently on the 'A' team of investigative reporters for _The Daily Prophet_. Also a bestselling writer of three known unauthorized biographies: Armando Dippet, Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape being the subject of those books in question. A beetle animagus who never properly registered herself with Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic…but given how such knowledge can be used against you, I can't blame you for that."

As Rita gaped in shock on hearing that conciliatory statement, the bare hint of a smile crossed Linn's face. "Part of the Class of 1962 at Hogwarts, sorted into Ravenclaw," she continued as if from memory. "Graduated with twelve NEWTs in 1969, ranked fourth among a class of fifty-one, specialized in transfiguration and charms. Quite impressive. Joined the _Prophet_ staff as a junior reporter the next year, soon earning a reputation for finding out interesting secrets and exposing them to the embarrassment of others. Such eventually won you the nickname 'Queen of the Quills.' _Freiherr_ Dumbledore — according to what _Freifrau_ Granger told me when she warned me about you — called your work 'enchantingly nasty'…though I personally must confess that the titles of your books desperately need a dose of honest originality and objective neutrality. '_Dippet: Master or Moron_?' '_Snape: Scoundrel or Saint_?' '_The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_?'"

She shook her head. "And you wonder why _Markgraf_ Potter doesn't want you to write his life story, Rita? He's already endured years of scorn and abuse at the hands of your society, right after he emerged fresh out of the living hell he was sentenced to when he was given to the Dursleys after _Herr_ Voldemort was destroyed by _Markgräfin_ Lily Potter in 1981." The smile slipped from Linn's face. "Even if many eventually woke up to how ignorant _Freiherr_ Dumbledore ensured _Markgraf_ Potter would be when he was invited to Hogwarts nineteen years ago, that constant switching from mindless veneration to equally mindless scorn marks a person deep down. Especially one as abused as he. Considering how much value you magically-raised put on children, you should have smelt that out right away and moved to correct it. You would have won Harry's eternal devotion if you did that, Rita. You're a Ravenclaw. Intelligence is second nature to you. Why do you think Harry was so quick to become 'Dumbledore's man' until Tsukiko-sensei woke him up to the bitter truths of what destiny dropped on his head before he was even born?"

Rita blinked as she tried to make her heart stop beating so loudly in her chest while desperately also trying to determine what this reborn demon's angle was. Taking a second to look around, she noted that the only other person in the teashop she could see was Staff Sergeant Callie Norman, the senior non-commissioned officer of the Black Maidens' headquarters company. Another of the British-born members of the Schwarze Mädchen, she was a native of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. A 1936 NEWT graduate and alumnus of Hufflepuff, Callie was a maternal relative of the Gibbon twins; in fact, save for a different style of hair, Callie could easily pass herself off as either Elizabeth or Jessica. Like Linn, she was currently in a business suit, a small spray of military insignia over her heart topped with the Knight's Cross and a Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves. While it had been a while since Rita had studied the Black Maidens — she read about the Hogwarts alumni in that group when she was a student in the 1960s, then revisited their stories after the Battle of Hogwarts when she heard a rumour that _Hermione Granger_, a woman who shouldn't have cared at all for a group that was closely linked to the infamous _**Nazis**_ that had ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, had become a fan of Gellert Grindelwald's coven of combat hit-witches — and could recall their histories out of memory, she knew Callie had earned eleven NEWTs, specializing in herbology and transfiguration; she had been the one who tutored her cousins in the latter subject before she left Hogwarts and wound her way to the other side of the North Sea.

She also had beautiful blue-grey eyes…

_ACK! Stop, Rita!_ the reporter admonished herself as she fought down the blush that was slowly creeping into her cheeks. _You can't think THAT! Not NOW, you perverted…!_

"There's no shame in admitting something like that, Rita."

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt Linn's eyes focus on her once more, the glasses glittering. Before Rita could muster a denial, the German witch's eyes flicked to her right. Before the reporter could ask herself what was going on, footsteps announced that Callie was moving to stand right next to her. Then — with a softness that surprised Rita — the Buckinghamshire native reached down to gently grasp the reporter's hand, making the physically older woman gasp in disbelief as the sensations of that baby-soft skin flooded her with pure bliss. Rita then croaked as Callie's other hand reached behind the former's neck to tenderly rub the skin under the hairline. As she felt her legs squeeze together as she desperately tried to fight off the arousal that was overcoming her, Rita's eyes squeezed shut…though she couldn't do a thing to make herself pull clear from Callie's grasp. After a moment, the staff sergeant's hand moved from Rita's neck to the right shoulder, reaching under the reporter's jacket to gently knead the tendons that connected her arm to her spine. A delighted whimper escaped Rita's lips as she felt what resistance she could to such an incredible act of seduction fade, her head rolling back to lean against Callie's right forearm.

"As I said, there's no shame in admitting that," Linn repeated herself. "That's always been one of the several wonderful — yes, even _magical_ — things about wizarding society we normal-borns soon discover when we're invited to commence formal training. Look at how no one ever thought twice of the relationship between Minister Grindelwald and _Freiherr_ Dumbledore when you exposed it in your book about the _Freiherr_ that came out after his death. When they read that, people always lamented on how much it must have hurt the _Freiherr_ to fight someone he deeply loved even if Europe had been rocked with a world war for six years prior to their duel at Nurmengard. There's no derision over the fact that the _Freiherr_ had been lovers with the Dark Lord of Europe. And that's been accepted in wizarding society for a century before it became commonplace in normal society. So please, don't hide the fact that you're attracted to Callie. Yes, I asked her to do this to you…but there's a simpler reason for that than bribing you.

"I'm trying to keep you _**alive**_."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Wh-what…?" Rita sputtered, her surprise at such a show of mercy quite obvious.

"Rita, use your mind and think it out," Linn urged. "Take all the clues you have and put it all together. Make a theory. See where it might take you."

The reporter blinked…before she felt a surge of what clearly was empathic support from the woman touching her now. Gazing up into Callie's blue-grey eyes for a moment, Rita took a deep breath. "Abraham Lincoln's here. He never leaves America unless some idiot daywalker does something stupid and needs to be put down. With the vampires that were here in Diagon today, it's a good thing he was here." She paused before a shudder raced through her. "Your brigadier has the Key of Gonebren now. The Queen holds the Key unless she feels it necessary to loan it to people to carry out a Royal Warrant, like what Harry Potter received in '97 to put Voldemort down. Since Lincoln's a former American president, Her Majesty would be friends with him. So she knows that there are daywalkers doing something in Britain. Given what the _Zauberwelt_ reported from Nurmengard yesterday when _**she**_ found you and your friends, the vampires were clearly interested in your people. It's interconnected. The Queen gave your brigadier the Key to help put the vampires down. Lincoln's here to help." She paused again before shaking her head. "Why they wanted to go after you girls, though…I can't guess."

The chief interrogator nodded. "Good. Let me ask this, then: Ever since our sisters came here to Earth, what's happened concerning our undead friends?" She smirked. "Especially with Liam O'Connor and William Pratt? You know who they are, I think."

Rita paled. "Angelus and Spike?!" she hissed before blinking a couple times before she gaped. "The vampires want to go to war against the Avalonians?! Why?! After what all your sisters went through thanks to those Niphentaxians, they'd NEVER…!"

"_Ja_, they wouldn't…but clearly some of our friends of the night don't see it that way," Linn stated. "One of them being Adam Sewell. You know who he is, I believe."

The reporter's jaw dropped. "_**ADAM SEWELL?!**_" she exclaimed. "Impossible! Lincoln destroyed him in 1863! That's what broke the back of the vampires who drove the southern states in America to form the Confederacy! How can he still be…?!"

"Didn't people ask that about _Herr_ Voldemort in 1996?"

That made Rita clam up before she shook her head. "Merlin…!"

"Near as we know, the vampires sought us out because we were trapped and helpless in that cave," Linn stated. "Didn't you hear what Elisa said before the Hollows came?"

The physically older woman blinked before she deflated. "That's why she called for the Vengeance of Blood…!" she breathed out…before her eyes widened. "Wait! The vampires wouldn't care about that! So why…?!" Her jaw dropped again. "Oh, Merlin! Sewell has allies here, doesn't he?!" Her brow then furrowed before she shook her head. "Malfoy and his friends! They've been pulling their hair out over the Avalonians since the Liberation. Given what I heard about his attitudes towards his sister…!" She smirked. "Who — under Malfoy Clan by-laws — could take Draco's place as matriarch of the clan and Marchioness of Cumbria in cases of _**treason against the Crown**_! With a Magical Royal Proclamation standing in the way…!"

"Makes strange bedfellows," the Lower Saxon combat witch said. "_Nicht wahr_?"

The Liverpudlian reporter nodded. "_Es ist wahr_."

"So let's say that you avoided Suzanne — it was Suzanne Stuart who exposed you, by the way — and went back to the _Prophet_ to file a story," Linn stated. "You'd probably report that the Black Maidens now have the Key of Gonebren and used it to help destroy a whole tonne of daywalker vampires that were caught in Diagon Alley. You'd also report that you saw _Generalmajorin_ Gibbon call down the Vengeance of Blood in public on behalf of all her command, stating clearly that the vampires were the reason she called upon Magic to grant that benediction. You also probably would theorize — as I'm sure someone as intelligent as you would do even if you didn't put it down on paper — that the benediction was made to forever settle the argument about whether or not the Avalonians are sentient beings or 'golems pretending to be human.'" She made finger-quotes on saying that last phrase. "Could you imagine what _Herr_ Sewell, _Herr_ Malfoy and his allies might conclude once that got out in tonight's or tomorrow morning's editions of the _Prophet_? And they decided they needed more information?"

That made Rita turn as white as a ghost. "I'll leave it at that for now," Linn said as she stood. "I have an appointment at Gringotts before I head back into orbit. Being as how I'm from the territory of the old Electorate of Hannover, the chance is there that I might have relations on this side of the North Sea. I know for the fact that some of my ancestors fought in the King's German Legion during the Napoleonic Wars. Who knows; maybe I'll have the right to sit in your Wizengamot as Elisa now does; she just did the test that gave her the right to declare herself _Burggräfin_ of Craiglockhart. I'll leave you in Callie's protective charge until such time as this is over with."

And with that, she headed out. Rita watched her go, then slowly turned to stare in confusion at the native of Aylesbury, who shrugged in return, her eyes twinkling…

* * *

Romney Marsh, the offices of the _Daily Prophet_, that moment…

"You've known Rita's secret for _**how**_ long?!"

"Since shortly before the end of the Triwizard Tournament."

Taking a moment to absorb that, Barnabas Cuffe blinked before he sank into his chair and stared wide-eyed at the beautiful woman standing before him. "If you knew that, Hermione, why the hell did you — much less Harry! — stay silent over it all this time?! You could have destroyed her after Harry killed Riddle off!"

Hermione Granger smirked as she looked around the office. Unlike the old offices in Diagon Alley, the _Prophet_'s current headquarters was in a roomy structure that offered a wonderful view of the English Channel and the coast of the Pas-de-Calais forty kilometres to the southeast. To ensure the continued safety of the _Prophet_ and its staff, the main offices of Britain's national daily magical broadsheet had been shifted here in the summer of 1997 to keep everything free from the grasp of the Death Eaters and their supporters. Despite frequent requests by some people over the last decade to have the offices shifted back to London, the Ravenclaw alumnus — Barnabas had been two years behind Tom Riddle at Hogwarts — hung off. It wasn't just because it allowed him to remain in close physical proximity to his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren; the "infamy" of Romney Marsh thanks to the events of 1979 provoked by Ulysses Cuffe still hung over the small village and made people pause before they stormed down here to try to bend the ears of the staff…like Draco Malfoy had done during his sixth year at Hogwarts to keep news of his sister Raven from reaching his mother.

Thinking of what happened to Narcissa Malfoy — and remembering what Betty Braithwaite had told him about the tearful reunion a week ago between the matriarch of the Malfoys and her once-lost daughter the day before Bellatrix Lestrange was banished from Britain — because of that selfish brat, the editor of the _Prophet_ could only shake his head in disgust. Still, despite his disapproval over the fact that Raven had been cut off from her family for so long, it wasn't his responsibility to go around Draco to help Raven and Narcissa reunite, especially given that Draco hadn't tried to block news of Cassiopeia Lestrange, Charlotte Crabbe, Ariel Goyle, Grace Longbottom and especially Rose Potter from getting out through the _Prophet_ after the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. If the stupid woman hadn't conceived of the possibility, then asked around, it was her fault in the long term. Besides, Raven's existence had distracted Draco from trying to wrest control of the _Prophet_ from a mixed coalition of Harry Potter's allies like Daphne Greengrass and Neville Longbottom…and now that she had her magic back, Pansy Parkinson-Black. That ensured no headaches for Barnabas and his staff so they could concentrate on more important things.

But _this_…!

"True, by the _letter_ of the law — a law that needs re-writing, by the way — Rita should have registered her animagus abilities with the Ministry the instant she developed them," Hermione admitted as she gazed once more at her host. "But by the _**spirit**_ of that law, Rita's abilities are known to agents of government, specifically in the person of Harry as the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. And if people are so stupid that they couldn't guess 'animagus' when it came to how Rita got her scoops, it's not our responsibility to point them out to people as much as it isn't your responsibility to expose her to the public. We don't encourage people to become informants for such trivial things like that. Rita's had her uses to us over the years, Mister Cuffe. She will still have her uses even now that it's going to get out that she's an animagus. That's the dichotomy of a free society. A balance needs to be preserved between an individual's right of privacy and an individual's right to know things. You and those working under you — including Rita — contribute to that balance. As do Harry and all those who such as I who elected to march under his banner when we found ourselves forced into a war that was never ours in the first place. Surely you must realize that in the long term. If you didn't, why didn't you move back to Diagon when Harry ripped Riddle in half with a soulsword on the Long Bridge in '97?"

His green eyes narrowed for a moment before he shook his head, an amused smirk crossing his face. "It is such a shame you were never sorted into Ravenclaw, Hermione. Your intelligence outshines Lily Potter's fifty ways from Sunday." His smile then faded. "But I hope you realize that reporters don't like being rolled."

She grinned. "You got that phrase from the Americans," she noted before sitting down in front of his desk. "And yes, there's always that. I know you people hate being abused in that manner. I don't like it when Harry does that. I believe in a free press…but I also believe in a _responsible_ press. A press whose reporters know when to reveal the truth…and when to sit on a story until the right time comes to let the truth be known. Why do you think I've driven for the institution of libel laws since I became part of the DMLE? Why do you think I recommended to Her Majesty to issue that Magical Royal Proclamation in the fall of 1997 to make the Official Secrets Acts passed by Parliament over the years applicable to magical situations as well as normal situations, forcing people like Harry and myself to swear on our magic to keep things secret if their release may potentially risk people's lives?"

A shudder ran through the editor's body as he found himself gazing intently into his guest's dark brown eyes. "Dear Merlin! You really believe in all this, don't you?!"

"I always have," she admitted. "Granted, when I pulled stunts like forming SPEW in my fourth year without all the relevant information, I made mistakes. But I've seen what happens when information is not properly managed. Harry's seen it as well. So have we all, both in the Order and in the Defence Association. Sirius Black ultimately died at the Department of Mysteries because Albus Dumbledore kept certain things about Tom Riddle secret from a LOT of people. That's why we became so desperate to learn from Tsukiko-sensei when the ICMC gave her the go-ahead to offer an apprenticeship to Harry. We needed it. God help us if she hadn't done that. Could you IMAGINE what might have happened if Harry was forced to fight Riddle with the 'training' — or rather, LACK of training! — Albus was willing to give him?" She shook her head. "Harry vowed on the memory of his godfather it would NEVER happen again if he could avoid it. You people decided back in '81 that when Harry survived Riddle's killing curse, he'd be your new saviour. Albus was getting on in years and you needed a new poster child to venerate. Much that he honestly wished you people never did that, Harry understood it…so he acknowledged his responsibilities — ALL OF THEM! — and went forth to help create a society where as many people as possible could raise their children knowing they would have the chance to live the best lives possible, be the best they could be." She nodded towards a family photo on the shelf behind her host. "Do you honestly believe your grandchildren — all of whom are half-bloods — would have the chances they will get if all the changes Harry and we unleashed post-1997 never happened in the first place, sir?"

"What about doing things like acknowledging Riddle with the title 'Magister Maximus?' How could you possibly do that after all that monster did?!"

"A society without laws is a society that deserves to die," she countered. "Granted, some of Tom's masteries weren't — and still aren't — recognized here in Britain. But when the Ministry signed the Treaty of Geneva in 1949 and became part of the ICMC, it acknowledged that despite our local standards, other societies have their own standards and their own sense of right and wrong, so all would be respected in an international forum. Two of Tsukiko-sensei's masteries aren't recognized here, but people here — even those who hate her — still respect her title of 'Magistra Maximus.' There can't be double standards. We are all equal together. That is the law of the land and it will be respected, just like the law that was passed in 1950 that cleared the slate for Elizabeth Gibbon and all her friends. And just like the Magical Royal Proclamation made by the Queen in April that blocked people in the Ministry from rating Avalonians — especially magical ones like Rose Potter — under the Magical Beings, Beasts and Spirits Act of 1811 like what Draco and his friends really want to ensure people like his sister Raven could never claim seats in the Wizengamot. People have different standards of right and wrong. Fine. That's the way of Existence. But as long as they keep their viewpoints to themselves and not try to inflict them on people who don't wish them any deliberate harm, we can all live together in relative peace and harmony. Both within Britain and beyond Britain. Because if we don't _fully_ acknowledge those laws, then we ultimately are saying that what happened to Sirius when Barty Crouch condemned him to twelve years in Azkaban without trial was okay. Harry will be damned to the lowest pit in Hell before he allows _**that**_ to happen!

"We also acknowledge that there are certain laws of Magic that override even mortal laws, don't we?" she then asked. "Like the Praeda Bellica and the Vindictam Sanguinis?" On seeing Barnabas nod, Hermione smirked. "So there's your Page One headline tonight. If you want, hold off until Rita can write her story to show you still trust her even if she made a 'mistake' because of her animagus abilities. Elizabeth Gibbon — on behalf of all her friends in the Schwarze Mädchen — called down the _**Vengeance of Blood**_ against the vampires who tried to kill her and her friends while they were trapped helpless in that cave at Nurmengard!" As the editor of the _Prophet_ gaped, the DMLE special adviser smirked. "Look what happened. A whole tonne of daywalkers were hiding throughout Diagon and Knockturn when Elizabeth made the benediction. Yes, we just confirmed — thanks to Raven Malfoy and Ariel Goyle probing their brothers' minds — they were in country, thus also confirming the vision Elder Tȟatȟáŋka had that persuaded President Lincoln to come here. Which begs this question: Why the HELL are people like Draco and Greg — and Theo Nott, whom we believe is the lynchpin holding this together — risking defying the Magical Royal Proclamation concerning the Avalonians by making an alliance with the vampires?"

She sighed. "What would happen if you — much less Rita — let that go before we can make sure people are safe, Mister Cuffe? Such as your staff? To say anything of people like Achelois Runcorn and Camellia Matthews who know of all this…but most likely haven't committed to firmly joining Theo's side because they're following the Slytherin creed and analyzing ALL the possibilities before electing to act?" She shook her head. "Harry and all of us — even Elizabeth and her friends — have to worry about them. Those are the responsibilities we have. So what are your responsibilities…and what will you do to ensure you meet them?"

He didn't answer her as she moved to leave. "Don't worry about Rita," Hermione added as she stopped by the door. "Elizabeth promised me she'll keep one of her people at Rita's side to make sure she stays safe from any potential retaliation, even seeking her out to get more information. If what we know plays out, it'll be resolved by Friday morning and you'll have one hell of a special edition to put out that evening."

With that, she nodded politely before stepping out of the room. Barnabas watched her go, remaining in place as his mind rolled over what he had just been told.

"Fifty points to Gryffindor," he whispered…

* * *

Gringotts in Diagon Alley, that moment…

"_**I DEMAND TO BE RELEASED FROM THIS PLACE NOW!**_"

A groan escaped Achelois Runcorn as her eyes fluttered open.

"Lady Mithwold, we have been asked by Director Potter to keep people here until such time as Lady Gibbon considers the situation secure. That is our obligation under treaty and we will not allow our customers to be put at risk."

A shocked gasp responded. "'_**LADY GIBBON?!**_'" the shrill voice of one Elaine Mithwold, the current Baroness of Whitley and the maternal aunt to Achelois' year-mate Zacharias Smith, bellowed. "**_YOU DARE CALL THAT TRAITOROUS MUDBLOOD A 'LADY?!' SINCE WHEN?!_**"

"**_ELAINE!_**"

The dual heiress of the Runcorns and the Collinses found herself smirking on hearing that indignant shout from Elaine's nephew. That was understandable. Zacharias had a reputation for challenging anything he personally didn't approve of, which should have seen the man sorted into Gryffindor if his willingness to help those he _did_ like hadn't made the Sorting Hat put him into Hufflepuff. Rumour had it that Zacharias had been a serious hard-case with Harry Potter in the early days of the Defence Association in their fifth year…before the news of the breakout of prisoners from Azkaban in January of 1996 forced all the D.A. to put their noses to the grindstone and work hard to prepare for the future. He had also questioned a lot of the things Yomigawa Tsukiko and Nekane Springfield had taught to the D.A. in sixth year — according to what Achelois had overheard Pansy Parkinson and the other "Slytherin Vixens" speak of during that time — but had stayed loyal to the Association right through to the Battle of Hogwarts.

It hadn't been without cost, though. Zacharias' father Dennis — who had nearly died in the First Purification War because he had been a half-blood that had dared to "marry above his station" when he had wedded the pureblood Carolyn Mithwold — had been outraged when the Ministry of Magic had let off so many people thanks to the "Imperius defence"; because of his "defiance of his betters," the Death Eaters killed the man two weeks before Voldemort's destruction. That had utterly destroyed Carolyn, a woman who had been totally devoted to her husband — and who, as Achelois would later learn from her grandfather, had long been battered emotionally thanks to her older sister Elaine, a pureblood traditionalist to the core — and effectively estranged Zacharias from her aunt.

So what the hell was he doing standing in the same room as Elaine?

Opening her eyes, Achelois looked around. She was quick to note that she was now on a stretcher in the main reception hall of Gringotts, a blanket over her. Feeling her jaw, she then relaxed on noting that nothing had been broken thanks to that uppercut Rose Potter gave her. _Should have been a bit more careful, Loi_, Achelois admonished herself as she moved to sit up…before she perked on feeling a hand grasp her shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

She spun left…

…then found herself gaping in awe at a woman who — _Heresy!_ her mind screamed out — outdid Rose Potter in the beauty department. Rusty-red hair that flowed to mid-back framed a face that could have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci himself, pierced by a pair of earth-brown eyes. A glance down revealed her to be wearing a black business suit with a black-and-gold tie — Hufflepuff colours, Achelois realized — with the jacket unbuttoned to reveal a waistcoat, that embossed with the crimson, white and green tartan of the Stuarts of Bute. Over her left jacket breast pocket, there was the silver-trimmed black cross pattée of the first class Iron Cross — Achelois always wondered why that was a pin-on medal in lieu of a standard medal ribbon or the neck ribbon of the Knight's Cross — plus the undress ribbons of a Pour le Mérite Magique and the long service medal for the Magische Reichsarmee nestled atop the pocket's opening. The ribbons were topped with the wreathed crossed wand badge in silver marking this woman as a trained military combat witch. Finally, there were two unknown badges below and flanking the bottom arm of the Iron Cross: A silver wreathed badge with a helmet over crossed swords to the viewer's right and a wreathed badge in bronze with the image of a diving eagle on it in the opposite position concerning the Cross.

"Hello…" Achelois meekly eeped.

The strange woman blinked before her eyes twinkled in amusement. "Relax," she gently soothed with a noticeable Highland brogue in her voice that reminded Achelois of Minerva McGonagall…though this beautiful woman spoke with in the same matronly tone Poppy Pomfrey always used with her patients. "I'm afraid Healer Potter accidentally did you a very serious injury when she struck you with her fist; it was so bad, your spine was dislocated and your spinal column torn." As Achelois instantly reached for her neck to feel there, the other woman smiled. "There was no choice but to give you a new body, Achelois," she added in a whisper, which made the dual heiress of the Runcorns and the Collinses pale. "You'll understand why soon enough. Be patient."

"Chief Mediwitch Stuart?"

She turned as a goblin in a well-tailored suit — Griphook, Achelois recognized; his association with Harry Potter and his closest allies was known — came up. "Yes, sir?"

"If you wish, we can do the inheritance test now," Griphook quietly stated as he flicked an amused glance over towards the main doors. "Let's see what it shows."

Achelois blinked before looking herself. There stood a huffing Elaine Mithwold, barred from walking out of the bank thanks to the small phalanx of goblin guards standing in her path. An annoyed Zacharias Smith stood nearby, his arms crossed and a disgusted look on his face as he glared at his aunt, who was busy trying to stare down an elderly goblin in a sharp business suit. That was Erlking, Achelois realized; he was a senior director of operations at Gringotts, believed by many to be Ragnok's chosen successor as chief director of the bank…as well as the personal account manager of the Collinses and the Runcorns. Having dealt with the fellow for years, Achelois was quick to note his amused smirk. Also in the room atop the normal run of tellers and other bank personnel were several other customers, who were watching Elaine — a middle-aged woman who had a reputation as something of a windbag when it came to issues pureblood traditionalists always focused on; in Wizengamot meetings over the previous decade, it had been Elaine who did the filibustering for allies like Draco Malfoy and Theodore Nott — with a mixture of undisguised amusement and nose-twisting disgust. That was understandable; rumours that reported that Elaine had a hand in the death of her brother-in-law Dennis Smith had circulated for years since Voldemort's fall. Those were false, Achelois knew; Elaine might be a fire-spitting pureblood traditionalist in the very same vein as Dolores Umbridge, but she was devoted to her younger sister and wouldn't dream of doing anything that would hurt Carolyn. _Much like how Melli felt about Charlie_, Achelois mused as she moved to pass her hands over her exposed arms, the many years of discipline she had developed over her emotions helping her keep the shock over being forced to undergo a body-swap — _Wait! Isn't there some "awakening" a newly-born Avalonian goes through after the soul's generated or shifted over?!_ she wondered — from appearing on her face.

"Might as well," the mediwitch — _Suzanne Stuart_, Achelois then mused as she recalled the names of all the British-born members of the Schwarze Mädchen — said as she stood up, following Griphook over to an open teller station.

As the teller nodded in greetings to Suzanne, Achelois stood, folding the blanket that had been covering her before setting it aside, then she moved around, finding it easy to walk despite her being in a new body. _I'm an_ **Avalonian** _now?!_ she wondered again as she noted there was no stiffness in her joints or any other sign which could indicate that her body was virginal in every way conceivable. And while the idea of actually becoming like Rose Potter had haunted Achelois' thoughts ever since the revelations in February, she hadn't acted on it. While it would have won the support of her father and maternal grandfather, it would have put a strain on her relationship with Camellia Matthews and made things difficult for her with people like Draco Malfoy. _Not that it matters now_, she then lamented as she recalled what she had seen in Diagon earlier today. _Even if he's too scared of Raven, not even Drake would deny the precedence of the Vengeance of Blood over everything else._

"Master Teller Nagnok, a good morning to you. A thousand humble pardons I ask for bothering you with my trivial affairs. May your vaults overflow with gold, your enemies' heads be impaled on pikes and their blood served as blood wine at a feast."

People blinked on hearing that clearly-spoken greeting before they turned as one — human and goblin alike — to gape wide-eyed at Suzanne Stuart, who was now standing in front of one of the senior tellers at his station, bowing her head respectfully to him as she had her hands clasped over her chest with the left hand holding back the right; this, Achelois knew, was the goblin salute of peace. Silence reigned over the main hall before the stunned Nagnok — a man who was probably within a year of being promoted away from the front counters and allowed to assume account managerial duties — collected himself and bowed his head in apology to this incredibly polite Highland woman standing before him. "It is I who must beg a thousand humble pardons from you, Lady Healer Suzanne of Clan Stuart of Bute," he declared. "I was honestly not expecting such a greeting even from one as obviously learned as you. And as brave, seeing you bear the Iron Cross First Class on your jacket…along with a Wound Badge in Silver." His voice then went as cold as the Arctic in mid-winter as he enquired, "May I humbly ask you, good lady, the names of those swine who DARED raise wands against a HEALER?"

And _that_ was a profound question from a goblin, Achelois smirked as she glanced over to see Elaine Mithwold's face turn an interesting shade of puce in outrage at the fact that a "mudblood" was being shown such respect in such a public forum. That simply proved yet again that most pureblood traditionalists were too blind to too many things, especially concerning the beings who — thanks to several bloody "rebellions" over the centuries that culminated in the Treaty of 1779 that forever ensured no wizard would be allowed to form a financial institution to compete with Gringotts — held the public and private purses with grips of diamond. Given how much goblins valued their healers, the idea of actually causing one — even a human one like Poppy Pomfrey — harm would have members of the Noble Tribe spitting fire in outrage.

"Much that I am touched by your profound concern, good warrior, those who caused my injuries and saw me granted such a prized decoration — as it was, so my comrades would gladly say if asked, bought with my _blood_! — are no longer with us," Suzanne answered. "While I could demand reparations from their relatives as the harming of healers has been outlawed for centuries, I shall not." People around the senior mediwitch were all quick to sense that she had kept the expected follow-on statement "For now" unspoken to emphasize her point. "However, I do have the fortune of possessing my vault key at this time, so may I humbly ask you — while performing the inheritance test as asked of me by my war matriarch, the Viscountess Elizabeth of Craiglockhart, a humble warrior of the Order of the Iron Cross granted the right to bear the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds — that an audit of my account is done."

"It shall be our pleasure, good lady. Your key, please."

The skeleton key was then handed over. Nagnok handed it to a waiting assistant teller before the latter raced off to do as Suzanne asked. A knife was then produced to draw a small amount of blood from the senior mediwitch's finger to place on a charmed piece of parchment…before a magical family tree began to appear. Gazing on it — as the crowd watching this seemed to hold their breaths in anticipation — the master teller blinked…before his jaw slightly dropped for a second. The faintest hint of a delighted smirk then crossed his face before he gazed on the senior mediwitch of the Black Maidens. "It appears, my lady, you are a potential heiress to the Earldom of Clydeford," he then clearly announced, which made the others watching this gape in shock and Elaine gargle in horror. As was known, the Noble and Most Ancient Magical House of Kirk — whose clan heads were ennobled as the Earls and Countesses of Clydeford — was effectively extinct thanks to its last known living member, Nehemiah Kirk, being Vanessa Zabini's second husband…and the second victim of Martin Kneen and the Curse of Maha, it would be revealed after Vanessa's would-be husband was found crucified in Knockturn a year before Voldemort's first fall. "If I may, we can take a moment to confirm this before presenting this to the Master of Inheritances for his review."

"Please do so, Master Teller."

"_**NO! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!**_"

"**_SILENCE!_**" Erlking bellowed, nearly knocking Elaine over with the force of his shout. "**_HOW DARE YOU INTERFERE IN THE PROPER CONDUCT OF THIS INSTITUTION?!_**" Before the stunned woman could recover, the senior director gazed in Griphook. "Manager Griphook, would you _**please**_ request a moment of Chief Liquidator Brunth's time?"

Achelois could only smirk at the marvellous sense of control the younger goblin had over his facial expressions as he bowed in return. "But of course, Senior Director!"

People audibly gulped on hearing that while Griphook headed off to do as he was bade. The Chief Liquidator — Erlking had held that position for years before he was made a director of operations shortly after the end of the First Purification War, when it was passed on to Brunth — was the most feared goblin in Gringotts. He was the person who supervised the audits of accounts, investigated allegations of fraud for or against Gringotts…and when came time for the goblins to move to liquidate the physical assets of a client in cases of bankruptcy, claims of the Praeda Bellica during times of war or the confirmed complete extinction of a magical line, was the one who ensured the final distribution of those assets was done properly per treaty. He was also, by tradition, the chief security officer of a Gringotts branch, called on to ensure all was at peace within the bank…and could, in cases of severe breaches of etiquette, act on behalf of the Board of Directors to launch what was commonly known to wizards as a "goblin rebellion." Thinking on that, Achelois smirked as she recalled that those who respected the Noble Tribe and their ways used the term "armed corrective action" these days to describe those bloody wars that had rocked relations between goblins and magical humans for centuries; it had actually been a phrase Hermione Granger coined…which always brought goblins to their knees in laughter whenever they heard it.

"Is there a problem, Senior Director?"

People — human and goblin alike — quickly got clear of the path a scowling, scarred being with the bearing of a seasoned warrior, now being escorted to the main reception hall by a visibly amused Griphook. As Achelois shook her head at what Elaine Mithwold had just brought down on herself today — with her own heir standing nearby, smirking with delight on seeing his aunt now in the hot seat — Brunth and Erlking exchanged bows and hand salutes before the latter glared at a white-faced Baroness of Whitley. "It appears, Chief Liquidator Brunth, _Ms._ Mithwold here feels it her right to object to our performing our duties according to the Treaty of 1779 when it comes to the distribution of blood inheritances — INCLUDING the seats within the House of Lords Wizengamot! — of lost magical houses to newly-found magical heirs. As the Lady Healer Suzanne of Clan Stuart of Bute, a humble warrior of the Order of the Iron Cross now standing before Master Teller Nagnok, appears to be given the inheritance test just done unto her right now per the orders given to the Lady Healer by her war matriarch."

"Which house?" Brunth asked with an amused smile.

"The Earldom of Clydeford, Chief Liquidator Brunth," Zacharias answered.

As Elaine stared wide-eyed at her nephew, Brunth gaped before he turned to gaze in admiration at Suzanne. "May I complement you, Lady Healer, on the luck the Gods of Magic bestowed unto you the day you were born and granted such gifts by Them," he stated before his eyes focused on the silver badge on her jacket next to her Iron Cross, outrage flaring on his face. "_Is that a_ **Wound Badge** _I see?!_" he hissed.

"It is, Master Chief Liquidator," Suzanne calmly stated before turning to give him the salute of peace. "But as I just told Master Teller Nagnok, those who forced me to gain this decoration with the payment of my blood are enjoying whatever awaits us beyond the Veil of the Te'a in the next life. And I pray unto you, good warrior, that you will be forever showered in gold, the skulls of your foes used as a throne for you to rest upon and their blood fill your goblets at feasts held to celebrate your victories."

Now Brunth appeared totally gobsmacked by such a polite greeting. As many of the humans watching this smiled in amusement at such a look of shock, Elaine sputtered out as she pointed in accusation at the chief mediwitch of the Black Maidens. "How _**dare**_ you try to steal that which isn't yours, you muggle golem?!" she shrieked out as the goblins all stared in shocked outrage — and barely-veiled amusement at such a mindbogglingly stupid display of arrogance in the presence of some of the most feared members of the Noble Tribe in Britain, Achelois noted — at such a scene. "You dare…URRRK!"

"Now, _Frau_ Mithwold…that's not a polite thing to say," a cold voice declared from behind Elaine, making heads snap around to allow people to gaze upon the silver-haired brigade regimental sergeant-major of the Schwarze Mädchen, who had come up behind Zacharias' aunt with the stealth of a ninja. "Especially within the walls of this most ancient and honourable institution. Feel yourself fortunate that treaties between the Noble Tribe and we humans forbid me from drawing my wand or knife on you inside this hall even if I would be justified before Magic Itself in acting in defence of these good warriors." As the goblins all preened on hearing that, Margareta Hecht added, "Be warned this, _leicheblut schweinhündin_: My beloved war matriarch has called down the **_Vengeance of Blood_** on the vampires who tried to strike us down and STEAL OUR MAGIC when we were helpless and trapped in that cave at Nurmengard…AND those who allied with them!" As Elaine turned as white as a ghost on hearing _that_, Margareta gazed upon the others in the room. "_Meine Damen und Herren_, who here saw my beloved war matriarch do that?"

"I did."

Eyes snapped over. "You okay, Loi?" Zacharias asked.

Achelois smiled as Elaine's eyes went wide. "I'm fine now, Zach."

"Achelois Hypate Runcorn! How dare you…AAWWWWK!"

Everyone gasped on seeing Elaine grasp her throat and stagger away from Margareta…then she was elevated into the air as if by a giant invisible hand. As the humans all scanned around to see who was doing that — as the use of magic by humans in Gringotts unbidden was grounds for war — the goblins all smirked. "Be calm, my friends!" Erlking called out as he held out his hands in assurance. "It appears the noble Friend of Dragons is here to do business with us this fine day! My lady, are you here?!"

"Indeed I am, Resource Master Erlking! The Wise Lord's Blessings on you all today!"

Heads snapped over…and then people gasped as a woman in a blue Japanese school seifuku walked out of the shadows, a staff with a head-sized crystal of glowing meson held in one hand. As the goblins bowed respectfully to the Friend of Dragons, the would-be Zoroastrian warrior-priestess from another dimension and ten years back in time came to a stop close to a wide-eyed Suzanne Stuart, her pale blue eyes intently focusing at the arrogant twit that DARED believe herself better than all around her. And who had been there the previous morning at the mansion on the Isle of Lundy when a group of daywalker vampires met with their "allies" to conspire to slay the Heiresses of Sagussa from Avalon for their "crime" of being kind. Twirling her staff to rest the blunt end of the limestone metal pole on the marble floor, she sighed before turning to gaze on Achelois. "Dear sister, a question if I may ask it."

The dual heiresses of the Runcorns and the Collinses nodded as Zacharias' aunt — who was trying NOT to choke to death while trying also to fight her way free of WHATEVER it was that was holding her in mid-air a metre off the floor — paled on hearing this annoying muggle golem busybody call one of the most influential young women in Britain "sister"…which was the title those alien creatures always used for _each other_! "Ask," she bade.

"Your mother's name is 'Napaeae Agave Runcorn,' is it not?"

A nod responded. "It is."

The newcomer then waved to the struggling Elaine. "Is this _**creature**_ your mother?"

"No, she is not."

"I see. My thanks, good sister. I pray that — despite your foolish blunder yesterday which just earned you the ire of the one whose love you have desired for so long — your life will be full of happiness from this day onward." She then perked. "Ah, Master Mundungus! I trust you weren't hurt when the vampires came here this day."

"Not with them Hollows brought here by our new friends cutting in like they did, lass!"

People turned as a grinning Mundungus Fletcher came over to join them. With a wave of her staff, the newcomer produced a surplus army dufflebag that was clearly full of things seemingly out of nowhere. Kneeling down to unzip it, he gazed inside…before his jaw dropped in shock. "Merlin! Where the hell did you find some of this stuff, lass?! Some of this…!"

"They were all lost in ships that foundered in Atlantic storms over the years as those fleeing the persecution of so-called 'lords' went to new places to live free of the tincture of hypocrisy that has haunted these islands for so long," she calmly cut him off. "Fortunately, the preservation charms kept them intact even if they had been submerged under countless tonnes of ocean kilometres down for centuries since their owners ran afoul of the various daēva haunting the oceans and were cast through the Veil of Eternity to embrace the Frašōkərəti far ahead of their time. I also took the liberty of culling those objects made by the smiths of the Noble Tribe from what I located. Those, Master Erlking, I return to you and yours."

With a wave of her free hand, another dufflebag was made to appear at Erlking's feet. Instantly, Brunth knelt down to unzip it…before he stared in disbelief at what was in there. "Oh, my…!" he breathed out, his black eyes tearing as he reached in to pull out a beautiful necklace made of the finest jewels, the sight of which made all the other goblins gasp in disbelief. "This was…!"

"Created for the long-lost Loyal House of Peverell of Houndsborough, whose members included the three brothers who amused the Undying Lord Josef von Taserich — then pretending to be the aspect of the Wise Lord others would call the 'Grim Reaper' — so much that he created the Deathly Hallows nine centuries ago which has vexed so many ever since, Master Brunth," Inada Mizuho finished for the chief liquidator. "As much as my good staff could tell me, a relative of the branch of the family descent from Master Ignotus Peverell — whose last living descendant, the Lady Thérèse Peverell, was recently discovered by Master Harry Potter sometime ago to ALSO be descent of the noble creator of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren and co-founder of the noble and ancient School of Hogwarts — took that necklace as she fled from these shores to what today is the noble Old Dominion. Sadly, she never made it across the Atlantic. I only pray that the Wise Lord…"

"**_LIAR!_**"

Eyes snapped up to Elaine Mithwold, who seemed to glow slightly as she tried to summon her magic to break free of whatever was holding her in mid-air. "Elaine!" Zacharias snapped. "Stop, you idiot! Do you really think you could…?!"

"Do not waste your breath with this one, Master Zacharias. She is unworthy of your concern," Mizuho cut him off as she walked over to gaze up at the struggling Baroness of Whitley with barely-veiled amusement. "I find your lack of faith disturbing," she then declared, making some of the people familiar with _Star Wars_ smirk on hearing that quote from Darth Vader. "The Lady Elizabeth openly prayed for the Wise Lord's Blessings when she requested He unleash the Vengeance of Blood on behalf of her and her sisters against your allies who dare defy death by consuming the blood of others. As I speak right now, your body's magic is being torn from you because of the Vengeance thanks to your inability to see the truth of what just happened hours ago outside the doors of this ancient institution. Magic Itself has judged the Avalonians — aye, even the pure-born ones! — as sentient beings. The words you and your allies have spoken about their being otherwise since the Liberation are now worthless. Methinks your handsome nephew shall soon succeed you as the lord and patriarch of your family. And the only fault that can be assessed…" She turned away. "Is your own."

Elaine howled in outrage…before a series of muffled cracking sounds echoed from her body as she seemed to jerk for a second, then she went totally limp. Mizuho gently lowered her to the floor before shaking her head. "She was warned…"

"She failed to listen," Zacharias calmly said. "Director Erlking, if I may…?"

"You need not bother, Lord Zacharias," Erlking stated with the proper decorum even if he was inwardly smirking at such a show of idiocy. "I'm trained to recognize such a catastrophic loss of magic. If I may, I'll take you immediately to see the Master of Inheritances now so we can properly see you made the Baron of Whitley given that your maternal clan by-laws demand that only one of the next generation can rise to take the seat when the last holder of the seat cannot perform his or her duty."

The younger man nodded. "Time is money."

That made the goblin smirk. "The Lady Tsukiko taught you all too well," he stated. "What of her?" he asked as he gazed on the unmoving — yet living — Elaine Mithwold.

"If I may, _mein Herren_, we'll take care of her," Margareta spoke up. "She was there when our opponents got together shortly after our friend — as she just hinted — killed their friends at Nurmengard and rescued all of us. _Majorin_ Heinrich will want to speak to her."

"Would the good major like her wrapped in a bow tie?" Brunth coyly asked.

Laughter filled the chamber, even from Achelois…which was cut off as the main doors were opened to allow Harry Potter to enter, accompanied by Elizabeth Gibbon and Luna Lovegood. All three then stopped as they stared in confusion at the scene before them before Harry's eyes locked on the lone Japanese woman in the room. "You!"

Mizuho didn't react. "Yes, Lord Harry?"

"I've got words to say…!"

"The Shadowlands."

Silence.

"What?!" Luna eeped.

"Before your friend tries to berate me for delivering the Key of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren unto Wise Mistress Elizabeth so that the noble Hollows could be summoned to Diagon to help her and her friends protect those who were in this lovely district earlier today from those daywalker vampires, Lady Luna, he should know this," Mizuho stated before she twirled the Staff of Gihan around to create a holographic image.

People looked…before Luna paled in horror. "That's _**Auschwitz**_!"

"Aye," the would-be warrior-priestess declared. "Specifically, the interrogation room in the part of the Birkenau camp created by the SS for their magical prisoners. Wise Mistress Margareta, you recognize these two?" she asked as the image changed.

Margareta's jaw dropped. "_Mein Gott_! That's Wilhelm Mandel and Janina Neumann!"

"Aye! Both of them were turned into vampires shortly after you and your friends helped avert the Nerioite invasion at Nurmengard. Ever since that time, they've been praying for the day someone would come along to help establish the 'Fourth Reich' and allow the swastika flag to fly once more over your beautiful homeland." As those who knew of the Nazis scowled on hearing that, Mizuho added, "They went there today to create some vile mesonium-based potion to absorb the death energy of that accursed place right out of the blood-soaked grounds, much like their friends — once they learned of you and your sisters being trapped in the cave at Nurmengard, Wise Mistress Margareta, Noble Mistress Suzanne — desired to steal your magic. How exactly that would be used, I know not; Master Wilhelm and Lady Janina were not told such things. But given what else we all can conclude…"

"To help them kill the Avalonians _en masse_," Harry finished with a scowl.

"Aye."

People's jaws dropped on hearing that. "Are they insane?!" Zacharias demanded.

"Most likely yes, Lord Zacharias. And I don't mean that in jest," Mizuho breathed out. "Just because my noble sisters now moving to restore the poor town of Sunnydale within the great state of California back to life after the so-called 'hellmouth' there destroyed it some years ago offered their mercy to the loyal and determined Master Angelus and the ever-witty Master Spike doesn't mean all of Avalon will unleash a campaign to FORCE vampires to return to the sun against their wills! Even if many of the undead have gladly and happily abused their powers and given in to the hunger for blood that has haunted their kind for so long, not all deserve to be tarred with such a large brush!"

"All it needs is one stupid fool to launch a terror campaign."

Eyes locked on Achelois. People considered that for a moment before they nodded. At that moment, the goblin that had been directed by Nagnok to do an audit of Suzanne Stuart's vault came back, several sheets of parchment in hand. "Master Teller!"

"Here," Nagnok declared, holding out his hand.

The parchment was handed over. Scanning what was there, the master teller blinked before he smiled. "Fortunately for you, Lady Healer Suzanne, your vault has not been tampered with since you were believed to have died on the fields of Nurmengard," he said before handing the parchment over. "Your current balance."

The senior mediwitch looked at it before she gaped. "Oh, my…"

"If you wish, I can direct you to an investment adviser," Nagnok added.

Suzanne stared at him for a moment before smiling. "I'd rather prefer your services, Master Teller. I'm sure you can assist me in the future in those matters."

The goblin gaped in shock on hearing that before he swelled with pride on realizing what was being offered. "My lady, you may depend on me!" he declared.

"I do indeed, good sir. Now, what say we call upon the Master of Inheritances?"

Nagnok smirked. "Right this way."

"Harry, you might want to warn Blaise."

Harry gazed on Zacharias as Suzanne headed off with Nagnok. "Why?"

"Warrant Officer Stuart is a relative of one of Blaise's would-be stepfathers."

That made the Man-Who-Won blink — the phrase "would-be stepfathers" when applied to Blaise Zabini always represented his mother's six late husbands before she married Blaise's father — before nodding. "Luna?"

"I'll get him," Luna vowed before heading out.

With that, people relaxed as Margareta ducked outside to get a couple of Jade Speer's people in to help drag Elaine Mithwold to Rosa Lee Teabag to confront Linn Heinrich. "Harry, are we safe?!" an elderly woman asked from her place near where the goblin guards were still standing. "I mean, _vampires_…!"

"You'll be protected," Elizabeth assured her. "As soon as Major Speer and her crew are done making sure all the buildings here in Diagon and Knockturn are sound and secure, I'll have a jäger company down here from orbit to help the aurors until we flush them out."

"Couldn't you find them, miss?!" a middle-aged man then asked Mizuho.

"Regretfully, they've all gone to places where even I cannot find them, good sir," the would-be warrior-priestess stated as she held up a reassuring hand. "That can only happen if they mask themselves using mesonium that was created here on Earth…which is a very risky thing to do given what mesonium can do to a vampire." She waved to the Staff of Gihan. "My staff's focusing crystal was first formed eons ago from the remnants of the Seeker's Forge — which today is the core of the planet Yiziba — but only allowed to acquire its present power on my adopted race's lost home planet of Sagussa over a dozen millennia ago. This is the same type of situation the Lady Master General Dean Raeburn and her friends often faced during the North American side of the Greater East Asia War when they hunted the Übermenschen. And while we all now have an idea of where they might be sometime soon, we can't afford to alert the vampires that we know what they plot. As was said long ago, 'loose lips sink ships.' In other words, if they learn that we're on to them…"

"We need oaths of silence until the emergency is over with," Harry finished. "That's why Brigadier Gibbon's people had to take Ms. Skeeter into custody. If she blabbed things out to the general public in the _Prophet_, the leader of the vampires — we suspect it may be Adam Sewell, the monster who helped provoke the American Civil War back in the 1860s…and yes, it surprises me he's still 'alive' after President Lincoln destroyed him before the Battle of Gettysburg! — would go after her."

The other humans in the room paled on hearing that. "No bloody way I'd want those monsters to rip something like that from me!" the man who had asked Mizuho about locating the vampires then declared. "I'll take that oath!"

Others quickly nodded their agreement. "Director Erlking, could we make use of your ritual chambers for them?" Elizabeth then asked. "I'll pay for it."

"We'll be happy to assist you towards that end, Matriarch Gibbon," Erlking said. "Brunth?"

"This way, everyone!" the chief liquidator bade.

As people headed off, Erlking then walked over to stand close to Mizuho. "My lady, you have the thanks of Gringotts for what you've done," he said as he motioned to two of the guards to take the dufflebag of goblin-made treasures and weapons to a place where they could be properly examined. "You can be rewarded for that, of course."

"The monetary needs of my friends and I are easily fulfilled with the judicious use of the Rōnin's Salvation and the help of Master Mundungus and other friends we've made the acquaintance of over the last few months, Lord Erlking," the would-be warrior-priestess stated. "My thanks on my friends' behalf for your kindness. If I may suggest, though — to ensure honour is upheld for all sides — such reward money should be sent to your branch in beautiful Warsaw for the use of our Polish friends to hire proper curse-breakers and exorcists to deal with the trapped spirits in Oświęcim and those other places the Nazi monsters soaked with the blood of the victims of the Holocaust."

Erlking bowed his head. "It will be done, good lady." He then smirked. "By the way: Back in your old universe, are there goblins there? I'd swear you're part-goblin with the way you've dealt with people since you first came to Earth with your adopted sisters."

Mizuho smirked in turn; no doubt, the goblins had learned of her extra-dimensional origins either via Moroboshi Negako or Luna Lovegood. "With my friend's help, I've learned the Noble Tribe here have counterparts in the dimension and timeline of my birth and short first life," she admitted. "But they do not actually deal with the magicals of my land of birth. Once you learn the truth of me — which, I pray, will come soon — and my friends, you will understand why."

"I look forward to seeing that in _The News of the Magical World_," he noted before bowing to her. "May Ahura Mazdā forever grant you and yours His Favour, Friend of Dragons."

She bowed back. "And may you prove worthy of His Favour as well, Oh Master of Gold."

He cackled as he headed off just as Mundungus came up. "Usual mix of funds, lass?"

"All in yen if I may ask it, my friend," she affirmed with a nod. "Much that visiting other beautiful lands such as your own merry Albion is quite exciting for my friends and I, the pull of home — though a much brighter version of home than the dark land the 'Greater East Asia Republic' (as my Japan is called) is — is too strong for us."

"No problem, lass. I'll take my usual cut as well."

She nodded in agreement. "As always!"

The magical artifact dealer chuckled before he headed off to get some galleons out of his vault to have it converted to yen; with what Mizuho had just found for him, he would recoup the loss and earn a little tidy profit on the side as well. As soon as he was out of earshot, Harry made a gesture with his hand to raise a privacy bubble around him and the would-be warrior-priestess from another dimension; Elizabeth had gone to get some funds out of her account while Zacharias and Achelois had gone off to make their oaths of secrecy and Luna had yet to return to the bank with Blaise. "'Rōnin's Salvation?'" he coyly wondered. "What in Merlin's name is that?"

"'Tis the gift that keeps giving, Master Harry. There are always donors within the shadows who can be made to surrender their ill-gotten gains," Mizuho teased back. "While he has crossed the line on occasion, Master Mundungus has not gone as far as those we hunt to appropriate their funds for much better uses."

Harry's jaw dropped before he smirked. "That's ironic! Stealing from _thieves_?"

"They hate being robbed much worse than normal people."

A snicker escaped him. "True!"

"Anyhow, I should apologize for obtaining the Key of Gonebren from your home for Lady Elizabeth's use unbidden…but time was, unfortunately, of the essence," she said as she relaxed herself. "However, I will also say that I noted something about the Lady Thérèse that concerned me, so I'll be off to Hogwarts to investigate it."

He blinked. "Why Hogwarts?"

"I don't know. Not yet. I do know this: When the shattered spirit fragment of the late Lord Voldemort that was trapped within Wise Mistress Helga's cup was given true life, it finally freed his battered soul to pass out of the Shadowlands through the Veil of the Te'a. At that moment, the Lady Thérèse became his 'child' in all respects thanks to the magic of the _nŏksbae_ rituals he incorporated in creating his horcruxi. Thus, she could realistically claim the family magic inherited from Wise Master Salazar…including the power of the Moor of Gonebren even if that is subject to the whims of the Daughter of the Pendragon. Did not Master William or Lady Fleur note any sort of spiritual link that tied itself to Lady Thérèse's soul from somewhere?"

Harry took a moment to consider that before shaking his head. "No, why?"

"Because I sensed a small link — almost invisible even to _my_ eyes — that connected your new friend's soul with something to the north of here. With my friend, I learned it was located somewhere within your old alma mater," Mizuho advised. "So once Master Mundungus obtains the funds my friends and I need, I'll be off to Hogwarts."

**_Controller, you forgot something._**

The would-be warrior-priestess perked. "I did…?"

**_Janina Lise Neumann?_** the Staff helpfully reminded her.

Mizuho blinked before she moaned. "Ah! Right! Bring her here!"

In a flash of energy, a stretcher was made to appear next to them, that bearing a dark-haired woman with brown eyes, dressed in a pair of form-fitting jeans, a button blouse and a cardigan sweater. She seemed dazed and confused, her head swishing to and fro as she moaned, "Willi…Willi…Willi…"

"What happened to her?!"

Both turned as Luna came up, Blaise beside her. Before Mizuho could answer, Mundungus came over with a bag of money. As Harry moved to guide Blaise off to one side so he could advise the Chief Warlock about his new step-cousin and Mundungus headed off with the dufflebag of lost items, Mizuho then breathed out as she mentally commanded the Staff to form a privacy bubble around her and Luna. "May I present your new friend's old schoolmate, Janina Neumann. My beloved and I caught her and her beloved at Auschwitz earlier today."

The daughter of the owner of the _Quibbler_ gasped on hearing that before she gazed wide-eyed on the former role playing gamer from another dimension. "You met Ataru?!" she hissed, a delighted smile crossing her face. "Oh, my! Does he…?"

"He knows now. I suspect the veil of secrecy will be lifted by the middle of next week at the latest. I hope you understand, though, that I will want to make sure all is safe for my friends as well as Ataru's family before you come to Tomobiki for the interview."

"I can understand that. So what about Janina's friend?"

"He broke free of Ataru's grip when my beloved was armoured…and left his _throat_ behind," the younger woman stated, which made the magical naturalist wince in sympathy; while vampires could be annoying on occasion and needed to be culled when they stepped out of line, she wouldn't wish THAT sort of fate on anyone! "Anyhow, I'm off to do some other things before I head back to face my friends and the panic they're no doubt feeling now at my being gone for so long. Until we meet again, Lady Luna."

And with a flash, she was gone. "Until we meet again," Luna mused…

…before she blinked in confusion. "Wait…!"

"Something wrong, Luna?"

She turned as Margareta came up. After Luna gave a quick explanation as to what Janina was doing there, the senior combat witch of the Schwarze Mädchen headed outside for a moment. She then came back with two of Jade Speer's subordinates, they moving to take the dazed Janina out of the bank and present her to Linn Heinrich over at Rosa Lee Teabag. Once that was done, Margareta gave her friend an expectant look. "Yes, Gretta, there is something odd," Luna then answered the German witch's question. "When I met the Vinur Drekar before, there were some things about her clothes that always seemed hazed to me…" Her brow then furrowed for a moment before her eyes went wide. "A school badge…"

Confusion crossed Margareta's face. "What?"

"She was wearing a school badge on her tie!" With that, Luna headed over to a free teller. "Master Teller Angrok, may I make use of a sheet of parchment and a quill?"

Surprised to hear that — yet knowing the daughter of the _Quibbler_'s owner wouldn't asking something like that without good reason — he nodded. "Of course, Lady Luna."

The items were handed over. Luna drew an oval with the quill, then sketched out a pair of what seemed to be standard kanji…though it was shaped and curved in a very odd way. After a moment, the magical naturalist nodded in satisfaction, glad that she had trained in meditation and Occlumency…even if it had been hard for her to master those skills given the nature of her Seer gifts. "That's her school's name, I'll bet," she whispered before shaking her head. "I can't read it, though…and I'm fluent in Japanese…"

"That's nine-fold script!"

"Eh?!"

"Nine-fold script," Margareta stated. "In Mandarin, you'd say _jiǔdiéwén_. I don't recall what it's named in Japanese. It's a very stylized type of script that's normally used in the creation of official seals that go into _inkan_ or _hanko_. You have to be a VERY good expert in how those characters are written to read _jiǔdiéwén_."

"Would Jade know?!"

"_Ja_!"

Luna nodded as she fished out a galleon to hand to Angrok before racing off, the parchment with the symbol of the Friend of Dragon's school in hand. Margareta watched her before shaking her head and following, leaving a smirking goblin behind…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **Niño** — Boy; **Deutsches Heer** — Germany Army; **Nicht Wahr?** — Literally "not true?" though normally translated as "isn't it so?"; **Es ist wahr** — Literally "it is true"; **Cross Pattée** — Literally "footed cross," this is a cross with wider arm ends than at the centre of the crucifix; **Schweinhündin** — Female tense of _schweinhund_ ("pig dog"); **Meine Damen und Herren** — Literally "my ladies and lords," the German way of saying "Ladies and gentlemen"; **Daēva** — Literally "a being of shining light," the term applied to the devil-spirits in Zoroastrianism; **Frašōkərəti** — Literally "making wonderful" or "making excellent," this is the state of life in Zoroastrian theology where all evil is expunged from a believer's soul (it is also the name used for the time noted in prophecy when evil is finally expunged from the Universe and all would be in perfect unity with Ahura Mazdā); **Old Dominion** — Nickname for the **Commonwealth of Virginia** in the United States; **Mein Gott** — My God; **Inkan** — Literally "reflective mark," this is the name of an official name stamp; **Hanko** — Literally "master stamp" and derived from the older term _hankō_ ("printing text"), this is the hand-held printing stamp used to serve as a person's signature in Japan.

2) **Sūn Yìxiān** is the proper Mandarin way of pronouncing the Western name of the founder of the original Republic of China; said name is normally written in English as **Sun Yat-sen** (1866-1925). It should be noted that this was NOT Doctor Sūn's birth name; the term _Yìxiān_ (literally "fleeing sage") was an alias he used when he corresponded with Western friends while living in Hong Kong in 1883. His genealogical name (what extended relatives would know him by) was **Sūn Démíng** and he was baptized **Sūn Rìxīn**. He was later given the courtesy name **Zàizhī**; this term literally means "conveying it" and is taken from the philosophical saying _Wén yǐ zài Dào_ ("literature as a vehicle to convey the Tao"). However, unlike the many great heroes of the Three Kingdoms period from which the characters of _Ikkitōsen_ and other such modern works are based, Dr. Sūn's courtesy name is seldom known in China…though, as is her want, Moroboshi Ataru's adopted tōshi sister **Moroboshi Hiromi** would pretty much refer to the man by the phrase "Master Zàizhī."

3) When the United States began preparing for World War Two, Congress authorized the establishment of the **Army of the United States** in February 1941. This force would be built up from a combination of the peacetime **Regular Army**, the state-governed **Army National Guard** forces mobilized to federal service and the millions of conscripts drawn into service thanks to the draft. Officers from the Regular Army called to serve in the Army of the United States overseas were — while administratively still holding their peacetime rank — given temporary rank promotions to serve the needs of the Army of the United States. When deployed overseas, such temporary ranks were called **Theatre Ranks** — this was the updated concept of **brevetting** as was done during the Civil War — and such promotions could come fast if the officer in question showed great promise. Conversely, if the officer screwed up badly, he would endure **Loss of Theatre Rank** and be sent home in effective disgrace.

For example, **Dwight D. Eisenhower** (1890-1969) entered the Army of the United States holding the Regular Army rank of **colonel**; he had been promoted to that rank on 11 March 1941 after almost _five_ years as a lieutenant colonel and **_sixteen_** years as a major! He was advanced to **brigadier general** in the Army of the United States a little over six months later on 29 September 1941. Eisenhower got his second star to make him a **major general** just under six months later on 27 March 1942. He was made a **lieutenant general** on 7 July 1942, promoted to **general** on 11 February 1943 and became the third officer to get his fifth star on 20 December 1944. His final rank of **General of the Army** would be substantiated in the Regular Army on 11 April 1946 when the Army of the United States was effectively disbanded thanks to the suspension of the draft.

Mollie Bean's case reflects this common occurrence during that time. She started World War Two as a second lieutenant in the **Magical Corps, United States Army** (**MCUSA**). Once made operationally part of the Army of the United States, her promotions came fast and furious; she was a brigadier general at the Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard. However, as magical armies were forbidden in peacetime by the International Confederation of Wizards, Mollie's wartime rank could not be substantiated in the Regular Army and she was stripped of theatre rank and demobilized as a _captain_ even if she would be seen as a reserve officer who could be recalled to duty during times of emergencies. This is the reason George Ballentine addressed her as "Captain" in Part Four…while Jade Speer — who knew Mollie via the encounters between the forces of the MCUSA and the Schwarze Mädchen in wartime — addressed her here as "_Generalmajorin_."

4) The grandson of Mollie Bean's saviour, **Donald O'Connor**, noted on here was first mentioned in Part 19 of _Avalonians at Hinata-sō_.

5) _Harry Potter_ character notes:

As stated before, all of **Rita Skeeter**'s personal information (save for birth year and house affiliation while she attended Hogwarts) is my creation.

The editor of the _Daily Prophet_, **Barnabas Cuffe**, first appeared in _Half-Blood Prince_. The time he attended Hogwarts is my invention; I first noted this in _Harry Potter and the Icemaidens_.

The names of **Zacharias Smith**'s relatives are my creation. I came up with the idea of Zacharias losing his father to the Death Eaters — not to mention Dennis Smith's disgust over the corruption that ran rampant through the Ministry of Magic in the wake of Voldemort's first fall in 1981, when people like Lucius Malfoy used the "**Imperius Defence**" (I first used this term in _HP&IM_) to escape justice — to explain Zacharias' automatic mistrust of things, not to mention his refusing to fight the Death Eaters in the Battle of Hogwarts as shown in _Deathly Hallows_.

**Erlking** and **Nagnok** are my own characters; they first appeared in _HP&IM_.

The name of Vanessa Zabini's second husband, **Nehemiah Kirk**, is my creation; he was first mentioned in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_. **The Earldom of Clydeford** is named in tribute to a road located in the Glasgow ward of **Braidfauld**, located on the north side of the River Clyde four kilometres east-southeast of downtown.

6) As is rather typical for the Germans in my eyes, the number of levels in the ranks of the traditional nobility were a lot more complex than what developed eventually in Britain. By the time of the rise of the German Empire in 1871, the ranks that would be roughly equivalent to the noble ranks of the Wizengamot as I first introduced in the _Icemaidens_ series became as follows (with the equivalent British noble titles and Wizengamot noble house titles as I noted in the first _Wizards and Avalonians_ story, going from highest to lowest):

_MARQUESS/MARCHIONESS (NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE):_  
**Markgraf** ("Count of the March") — Anglicized as **Margrave**  
**Landgraf** ("Count of the Land") — Anglicized as **Landgrave**

_EARL/COUNTESS (NOBLE AND ANCIENT HOUSE):_  
**Fürst** ("First") — Translated as "prince" in English  
**Graf** ("Count") — Often called **Reichsgraf** ("Imperial Count")

_VISCOUNT/VISCOUNTESS (MOST NOBLE HOUSE):_  
**Burggraf** ("Count of the Town") — Anglicized as **Burgrave**  
**Altgraf** ("Old Count") — Anglicized as **Altgrave**

_BARON/BARONESS (NOBLE HOUSE):_  
**Freiherr** ("Free Lord")  
**Herr** ("Lord")

It should be noted that thanks to **Salic Law** — the laws that governed the **Franks** (these were the peoples of modern day France, the Low Countries and western Germany during the early Middle Ages)…which were passed to the Holy Roman Empire and its constituent territories — no woman could inherit land even if she was the eldest child of a local lord; such inheritances HAD to go to a male child. However, as it eventually developed in Germany, the noble titles — with feminine endings — could be used for a lord's wife, daughters or aunts. Thus:

_Markgraf_ — **Markgräfin**  
_Landgraf_ — **Landgräfin**  
_Fürst_ — **Fürstin**  
_Graf_ — **Gräfin**  
_Burggraf_ — **Burggräfin**  
_Altgraf_ — **Altgräfin**  
_Freiherr_ — **Freifrau** (wife)/**Freiin** (daughters and aunts)  
_Herr_ — **Frau**

In the end, German magicals respectfully decided to use the higher-ranked equivalent term when speaking of their British counterparts. Because of that, the reason that **Margareta Hecht** addressed **Elaine Mithwold** with the mere _Frau_ honorific should be easy to comprehend…!

7) The **King's German Legion** (**KGL**) was a corps of German expatriate soldiers which fought under British command during the Napoleonic Wars between 1803-16. Its personnel came from the **Electorate of Hannover** — whose rulers would also become the Sovereigns of the United Kingdom in 1714 when **King George I** (1660-1727, ruled Hannover from 1698 unto death) ascended the throne; the union of the crowns of Britain and Hannover would remain in place until 1837 and the ascension of **Queen Victoria** (1819-1901), which disqualified her from being the sovereign of Hannover due to Salic Law (as noted above) — in modern-day Lower Saxony. They would play vital roles in the unsuccessful Walcheren Campaign of 1809, the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal from 1808-14 and the Hundred Days of 1815 that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon's final defeat. The Legion was practically an army division by modern standards; it had two dragoon (mounted infantry) regiments, three hussar (light cavalry) regiments, two light infantry battalions, eight line infantry battalions, plus artillery and engineer units. After its disbanding in 1816, the veterans of the Legion would help form the core of the army of the newly-established **Kingdom of Hannover**. Such units would later be merged into the Prussian Army after Hannover was conquered in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866…thus would eventually form part of the Imperial German Army that served right through to World War One.

8) I was first introduced to the concept of reporters being **rolled** in the 1996 Tom Clancy book _Executive Orders_ (ISBN 0-399-14218-5). In effect, this is where someone — usually a public official — manipulates a reporter into doing something the reporter may not himself have done to promote a specific public reaction.

9) The **Rōnin's Salvation** concept was first introduced to me in the still-incomplete (as of 2013) fanfic _Ranma and Akane: A Love Story_, written by **Eric Hallstrom** around the turn of the millennium. It is archived at this website under the author name **Speaker-to-Dreamworlds**; it is also marked as one of my favourites. I should also note that it is from this story that I get the descriptive phrase "**Don't Point That at MY Planet!**" when describing a VERY bright blush.


	10. Gathering of Immortals & Other Worthies

Nurmengard, a half-hour after mid-afternoon (London time: two-and-a-half hours after lunch)…

"If I were you, sir, I wouldn't think of drawing that sword."

Hearing that kind statement, Matthew McCormick jolted before he spun around…and then stopped himself on seeing the smiling man standing nearby. Taking a moment to calm himself, the special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations — his being immortal forced him to be supported by the magical agents of the FBI to ensure no one asked any stupid questions about his not growing older — smirked as he lowered his broadsword. "I should apologize for that, Mister President," he stated as he offered his hand, which Abraham Lincoln took. "But given all the people I'm sensing…"

"It's Holy Ground, Matt! Didn't people tell you that 'bout this place?!"

He perked before a delighted grin crossed his face. "Mollie!" he called out before giving Mollie Bean a one-armed embrace, kissing her on the cheek. "What are you doing here?!" He then blinked on seeing her marshal's star on her jacket. "Oh…!"

"Can't haul me back into military service, so I got a choice," Mollie said as she gazed fondly on her old fencing instructor from Salem. "I decided that since Mister Lincoln here was involved, I'd be what I was back during the Late Unpleasantness."

Matthew laughed as he slipped his sword into his jacket — like many immortals when he travelled around and didn't have any car to carry necessary supplies, he used a calf-length gaberdine to help mask his broadsword; as he was a Special Agent (Honorary Magical) in the FBI, his clothes had specialized notice-me-not and technological-masking charms that helped keep his sword hidden since carrying such a weapon when one might expect him to carry a sidearm would raise a tonne of questions — before offering his arm to Mollie, which she took. "So why aren't you wearing your medals?" he teased.

She groaned before waving to her jacket pocket. Sure enough, a nice "salad bowl" of twenty-seven ribbons in six rows of four topped with a row of three appeared over the pocket opening, the marshal's star shifting down to sit over the pocket along the way. Gazing at the ribbons, Lincoln blinked on noticing something surprising concerning the first two of her medals. "When did you get the second Medal of Honour, Mollie?"

"Right here in '45," Mollie breathed out as she looked around the former grounds of the Nurmengard Magic Academy. "Sure cleaned up this place a lot."

"Were you here, Mister McCormick?"

"Regretfully no," Matthew confessed as he tried to relax himself. Given the presence of a baker's dozen other immortals — including some as old as he and one who was VERY old…which most likely indicated the presence of one of Methos' peers if not Methos himself — it was hard…though a reassuring squeeze of his arm by Mollie made him smile in return; most likely, her Avalonian empathy had not detected any sign of belligerency from the others here. "Was busy back home hunting immortals who threw their lot with Hitler and came over to America to cause trouble even if the war was long over. They were all support personnel who protected the last of the Übermenschen from the War Hawks until that business over Lake Ontario after V-J Day." He then blinked on seeing a familiar face amongst the small crowd of undying swordsmen and swordswomen now relaxing close to the ruins of the World-Gate. "Was Carl here?"

"Nah! He's the one who pulled the Lady Tsukuyomi out of Nagasaki before Major Sweeney flew _Bockscar_ over the town with Fat Man in August of '45," Mollie explained as the crowd of immortals turned to gaze on the newcomer before looks of recognition crossed several faces and one woman laughed with delight as she got up and walked over. "Most likely, he came here to escort her on her yearly visit to see Gellert."

"Matthew!"

Matthew smiled, blushing like a schoolboy as Mollie pulled free so as to allow the native of Salisbury a chance to hug his own teacher. "How are you, Mistress?"

"You look so well, my student," Ceirdwyn — currently living under the alias "Katherine McKearn" — breathed out with delight as she gave him a careful look-over. "We missed you here that day, Matthew…though your own student explained your absence." She gazed fondly on Mollie for a moment. "It's a pity that Josef's 'experiments' forced Hirosuke's last student and her friends to continue to fight even after that war was all done and over with." She gazed once more on Mollie. "How are you, Margaret?"

"Happily doing the one thing you folks always love to do, ma'am."

"Oh?! What's that?" the undying Celtic warrior-turned-fashion designer asked.

The Avalonian-American witch from North Carolina winked. "Teach."

"She teaches magical history at Salem," Matthew added.

Ceirdwyn laughed. "Seeing as how she lived it for as long as she did — thanks to the mercy shown to her by that kind fellow from the Land of the Three Stars — she would be eminently qualified," she mused. "And what of Howard, Margaret? Do you know?"

"He was killed by that curse that wiped out all the people of Phentax Twelve when the Lady Negako and her friends came calling in February, ma'am," Mollie answered as Carl Robinson, Duncan MacLeod and Amanda Darieux came over to join them. "His grandson was an observer in Washington state when the Noukiites came. He's on Tengsei now."

"That's good. And you are, good sir?" Ceirdwyn then asked as she gazed on the tall man who had accompanied her second student and his good friend onto the grounds.

A polite tip of the ascot cap he wore these days in lieu of the tall stovepipe hat that had fallen out of favour years ago. "Abraham Lincoln, Madame Ceirdwyn."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"You're one of US…?!"

That was a pale-faced Carl. "No, Mister Robinson, I'm not," Lincoln stated. "I was yet another 'experiment' done by Josef von Taserich prior to Mister Booth coming to Ford's Theatre in '65 when my wife and I were watching _Our American Cousin_. The quasi-immortality that comes with the injection of meson in my blood is unavoidable."

The native of Louisiana blinked several times before he offered his hand. "If someone takes my head now, I'll die a happy man knowing I finally met you, sir."

Lincoln took it…then, much to all the immortals' shock, gave him the personalized multiple-grip handshake the former slave used when meeting friends. As Carl grinned at him, Ceirdwyn laughed. "You're a Watcher, Master Abraham?" she gently teased.

"Sadly not, Madame Ceirdwyn. My hobby would rather get in the way of doing that…though I do hold those who allow themselves to bear witness to your actions in great esteem." His eyes then narrowed. "Save for those like your friend's cousin and those others who defy their oaths to never interfere in the Game, Duncan."

"You would probably scare the Hunters far worse than we do, Abraham," Duncan stated as he offered his hand, which the Rail-Splitter warmly squeezed.

"So what is your hobby, Mister President?" Amanda asked.

He gazed on the immortal Norman thief. "I kill vampires, Madame Darieux."

Jaws dropped as the immortals all took that in…save for Duncan and Matthew, both of whom grimly nodded in understanding. "You mean that book is REAL?!" Carl asked.

"Yes, Mister Robinson, it is," Lincoln said with an amused chuckle. "It was one of Henry Sturges' more interesting ideas. Since I was exposed to the magical public thanks to Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood, Henry felt it only right to put out my story to as wide an audience as possible. Mister Grahame-Smith's a normal, but he has magical relatives, so he wasn't subject to the clauses of the Statute of Secrecy that veil those like Mollie from normals." He winked at the others. "He's the one who suggested putting a 'fictional' account out as a novel to normal audiences."

"Those of us who know the truth appreciated the irony all the more," Matthew added.

"How did you know of this, Duncan?" Ceirdwyn asked.

Duncan sighed. "I was there when Dean helped Abraham regain his sanity."

"As was I," Mollie added…

* * *

_Near Fort Saint John in British Columbia, Wednesday 17 July 1889, after nightfall… _

_"My God…!" _

_"Don't sound so dang surprised, Highlander! You're friends with Nicolas de Brabant! You know them blood-suckers have been runnin' around as long as you Immortals have!" _

_Hearing that, a cut and bleeding Duncan MacLeod blinked before he lowered his katana, his eyes scanning around the wrecked barroom to take in the sheer level of destruction the man holding an ichor-soaked_ **woodsman's axe** _of all things just unleashed within a half-minute. As he felt the faint "buzz" in the back of his head warning that there was another immortal close by, the Highlander gazed on Mollie Bean, who had her wand held to her side. "There's someone else here," he whispered before focusing on her friend. "Not you…" he stated. "So who in God's name ARE you…?!" _

_A harsh_ click-clack! _made the undying Scotsman gape as he found himself staring at the open hole of what had to be the muzzle of a rifled gun barrel…which was inserted in the handle of the stranger's axe! Before he could brace himself for the ugly pain of a bullet being shot into him, a sharp explosion echoed through the shattered windows of this saloon located at the site of the old Rocky Mountain Horse trading outpost on the shores of the Peace River. This place had been the local gathering hall of a small pack of daywalker vampires who had fled the United States in the wake of the launching of a campaign of total extermination in the late spring of 1865, when a reborn hunter of the undead was transformed by the Undying Lord into an unstoppable killing machine that just kept on coming no matter what was flung at him or whatever type of vampire — daywalker, nightwalker or demon-possessed — rose to challenge him. That had been what had brought Mollie Bean and her companion to this place. As for Duncan MacLeod… _

_"What the dang hell was THAT?!" Mollie demanded as she looked outside. _

_A gargled croak of surprise then escaped the now-immortal former president of the United States as he dropped to his knees, the axe he had used to decapitate over a dozen vampires tonight slipping out of his hand and dropping to the floor. As Duncan relaxed on noting that the gun within that axe clearly hadn't been primed to fire, he then jolted on seeing a stream of bloody sputum escape the other man's mouth…that flecked with small black dots that made the Highlander pale in horror as he realized what had happened to this fellow. Closing his eyes — and finding himself cursing again the name of Josef von Taserich for DOING this to people — Duncan gripped his katana. _

_"I'm so sorry…" he whispered as he moved into a beheading stance… _

_…before his eyes crossed on seeing the glowing tip of a wand right in his face. "Don't you dang hell DARE, MacLeod!" Mollie snarled, eyes misting with tears. "We KNOW what Mister Lincoln's going through right now! Why do you think I'm up here in CANADA of all places keeping an eye on him when he's been busy killing these monsters?!" _

_Duncan blinked as his eyes fell on her marshal's star before he turned to gaze on the retching man nearby. "Lincoln…?" he whispered in disbelief before he turned to gaze once more on the young magical marshal — which was clearly obvious to him; no normal woman would be allowed to bear that star on her clothes — who had stopped him from performing a necessary mercy. "My God…_**Abraham Lincoln**_…?!" _

_"Yes!" Mollie breathed out as she lowered her wand. She knew through the connections the Department of Magic maintained with the Watchers that the Highlander was a very honourable man. Unless he was caught up in a killing frenzy — like what he endured at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 — or a Dark Quickening, he would back off from doing such a mercy if the logic of the situation was properly explained to him. "He can control it more than most normal folk that Taserich bastard does his 'experiments' on do, Highlander," she added. "He's been spending years — hell, since WAY before that slime Booth tried to kill him in '65 in Washington City! — killing them carpetbagger daywalkers that started that stupid war down south in the first place!" _

_Duncan blinked several times before he lowered his sword. Gazing around as he tried to feel out the other immortal who was close by, he walked over to help the Kentucky-born lawyer up. "I'm sorry, Mister President," he apologized. "It's just…" _

_A wry chuckle escaped him. "Don't apologize, Mister MacLeod," Lincoln hoarsely said as he walked over to pick up a napkin to wipe his lips. With a gesture of his hand, he telekinetically retrieved his axe, then uncocked it before shoving the blade down on the handle to ensure the weapon was safe. "I've had episodes where the madness the mesonium now in my blood unleashes in me gets out of control, but not as frequently as young Marshal Bean has reported others Josef 'helped' normally undergo. It strikes me when I'm confronted with a large number of the monsters like the one who killed my mother." As Duncan winced, the vampire hunter gazed on him. "Duncan or Connor?" _

_He perked. "You know?" _

_Lincoln smirked as he reached over to pick up a discarded glass of whiskey, drowning it in one gulp; since all the people in this saloon — including the bartender — were vampires, he doubt they'd mind now. "I was President for a little over four years, sir," he explained as he reached over to pour Mollie a drink. "Thanks to the Department of Magic and the clauses of the Statute of Secrecy that demand heads of state or heads of government be let in on the secret of magic, I learned of people like yourself." _

_Hearing that, Duncan relaxed as Lincoln leaned over to hand the shot of whiskey to Mollie. "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, born in Gleann Fhionghain in the County of Inbhir Nis within Scotland in 1592, sir." He offered his hand. _

_Lincoln took it. "Abraham Lincoln, born in Hodgenville in the County of LaRue within the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1809. I'm honoured to make your acquaintance, Mister MacLeod." He nodded to Mollie, now calmly sipping her whiskey. "My most wonderful friend and travelling companion, United States Magical Marshal Margaret Bean of the town of Tarboro in the County of Edgecombe within the State of North Carolina. Salem Witches Institute Mistresses Class of 1856, graduated sixth in her class. Winner of the Medal of Honour for her fighting — while wounded — to help kill all the daywalker vampires within the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. All of whom were then engaged in helping to dismember the Union." _

_"I was just doing my duty, sir," Mollie said as her cheeks reddened. _

_"What regiment?" Duncan asked. _

_Mollie smirked as she recalled reading what the Highlander had been doing at the time. "Company 'D,' 47th North Carolina, Pettigrew's Brigade, Heth's Division, Third Corps. I disguised myself as a man; called myself 'Melvin' even if everyone in the company knew what I was. Got wounded in the wand arm on the first day, but I wasn't abandoning my friends when they moved to get the job done. Captain Lucas helped out." _

_That made the immortal Scottish warrior gape. "Lucas Desiree?! Then why…?!" _

_She gave him a knowing look. "As we help those like you live private lives, all we ask in return is silence, Mister MacLeod," she advised him. "And there's no dang way that we magicals — much less those vampires who'd NEVER do anything to hurt normal folk — would want the secret of what REALLY helped provoked the Late Unpleasantness in the first place from getting out to the normal public. Even to you Immortals." _

_Duncan blinked before he nodded in understanding. Indeed, Lucas Desiree — a captain who had served with the headquarters cavalry troop assigned to Thomas Jackson himself before the famous Virginian soldier had been mortally wounded at Chancellorsville in 1863 — would keep a secret like what Mollie just implied. The South Carolinian veteran of the War of 1812 — who pulled the recently-hanged Highlander out of the grave after Duncan had been caught helping slaves escape North when they first met during the Civil War — would understand the importance of what Mollie just spoke of. While Duncan had no real problems with vampires — atop his long friendship with the French crusader Nicolas de Brabant and several others like him, he was safe from being turned as a vampire could NEVER drink the blood of an Immortal — generally, he would NEVER stand back and allow such beings to ruin the lives of mortals wholesale, much less… _

_Wait…_

From Flor'da to Virginny,  
You can hear him revel  
For ol' Johnny Reb's  
Made a deal with the Devil.  
Send him up North,  
That snake-eyed liar,  
To drag us boys off  
To the Lake of Fire…

_"I've always hated that poem." _

_Duncan jolted before he gazed on Lincoln. "Lucas told me that once…" _

_He then tensed as the buzz in his mind increased violently, which made him turn… _

_"Oh, my Lord! What on Earth did you do here, Duncan?!" _

_…before he relaxed and lowered his sword. "Sorry, Lucas!" _

_A chuckle escaped the handsome man who had just stepped inside as he lowered his own cavalry sabre. Taking a moment to gaze around the room, he then stopped on seeing one of the dead people, his fangs still splayed even if his head was now separated from the rest of his body. "Vampires!" he hissed out in disgust…before his eyes fixed on the woman with the marshal's star on her jacket. "Mollie Bean…" _

_Mollie grinned as she straightened herself, saluting him. "Captain Desiree, sir." _

_He returned her salute with his sabre, a smile crossing his face. "Private Bean. It does my heart well to see you alive and whole…even up here, well beyond your jurisdiction…?" His voice trailed off in question. _

_"The Canadian Ministry of Magical Affairs is aware of Marshal Bean's presence here and has deputized her as part of the North-West Mounted Police for the duration, Captain," Lincoln reported, making the South Carolinian spin around to stare wide-eyed at the man whose election to the White House so scared his countrymen that they gladly supported secession in the late fall of 1860. "And I honestly now wish that there had been some co-ordination between people like Mollie and people such as yourself, sir. A lot of innocent lives, both North and South, would have probably been spared in the long term." He allowed his axe, still glistening with ichor, to rest on the bar. _

_Staring at that weapon, Lucas gaped…before he grinned. "'Rail-Splitter?!' My God, Mister Lincoln! I never once suspected that would be YOU of all…!" _

_Another gargled scream escaped the vampire hunter as he dropped to his knees. Mollie raced over as she drew her wand to perform some healer's spells as Duncan and Lucas stood ready to assist. After a moment, a ghostly parchment appeared before her…and then she hissed. "Shitfire! I'm such an idiot! The Cave of Tears must be close by! Mister Lincoln's reacting to whatever that danged thing is inside the Cave!" _

_"'Cave of Tears?!'" a confused Lucas demanded. _

_"It's a legend of the Niitsítapi, Lucas," Duncan reported. "From what I know of it, it's a small crystal of meson — the same stuff in Mister Lincoln's blood; it was Josef Taserich that did this to him! — with ungodly power that's on a necklace…!" _

_"You mean THIS necklace, sir?" _

_Everyone spun around… _

_…to stare at a woman dressed in what Duncan would swear was a Japanese kimono top with wide-bottomed trousers — not pleated as hakama trousers were — currently standing at the wrecked doorway of the saloon. The clothes were midnight black overall with the images of the Sun and the planets that orbited it — including a world similar to Mars even if coloured like Earth; on seeing that, Mollie realized that represented the red planet's magical twin of Nerio, the_ Mundus Magicus _— in a sea of beautiful stars. Strapped around her waist was a black leather-like belt that had a sheathed sword — which looked like a straight-blade version of a katana to Duncan's eyes — at her left hip. She had dark brown hair cut short like Mollie's — the North Carolinian witch hadn't allowed her hair to grow out since she had played at being "Melvin Bean" while serving in the Castalia Invincibles over two decades before — and sea-blue eyes on a very pretty face…though said eyes were darkened with layers of horrid grief which made her appear as melancholy as Abraham Lincoln always seemed to Mollie. Slung around her neck was a beautiful, intricate necklace of pure silver lace metal that holding a silver metal frame surrounding a glowing crystal that seemed like pure diamond from a distance…but had underlying layers of red and black in it. _

_"The Tear of the Stars…!" _

_Lucas and Duncan gazed on Mollie. "Are you sure?" the Highlander asked. _

_The magical marshal nodded. "Yes, sir. Don't touch that thing. The Niitsítapi have lost dozens of people when they tried to take that thing out of the Cave of Tears." _

_"It's called a Power Jewel, Marshal." _

_Eyes locked on the newcomer. "How did you know that?" Lucas wondered. _

_A wry smile crossed her face. "As baffling as this will sound to you, sir, it TOLD me that," she stated before gazing at Mollie. "As for those poor unfortunates of the Niitsítapi — strange that I can say that name now; I've always believed their name to be 'Blackfoot' as a tribe — who've tried to take the Jewel from the throne it was left on three thousand million years ago, they didn't meet all three qualifications that were mandated to allow any to become the Jewel's chosen Host." Her eyes then glistened with tears. "I did." She then tilted her head to gaze around Lucas at the slumped man on the floor. "Is he alright? Why's he got all that ebony meson inside him?" _

_"You can tell?!" Mollie demanded. _

_"The Jewel told me," the newcomer stated before raising her hand. "Here…" _

_Suddenly, a bolt of bright energy exploded from her palm to lance into Abraham Lincoln, causing the former president to shriek in agony for a moment as his whole body glowed with ebony fire for a moment…before the fire turned into a brilliant crimson shade. As a look of shocked surprise crossed his face, the energy the newcomer was forcing on him faded. "There," she breathed out as she lowered her arm. "It's all de-crystalized to ruby meson now. Maybe he won't feel so sick from now on." Confusion then crossed her face. "Who on Earth would do such a horrid thing to him?" _

_Duncan moved to answer…before a surprising sound tickled his ears. _

_Joyful laughter. _

_Eyes locked on Lincoln as the lawyer and vampire hunter spryly got back to his feet. Waving off Mollie's and Lucas' helpful hands, he took a deep breath…before he smiled as he reached over to take up a bottle of whiskey — to his surprise, it was Jack Daniel's — and pour himself another shot. Taking another deep breath, he swallowed that before gazing on the newcomer. "Would you care to join us, miss?" he asked. "I feel like celebrating. Mollie, get some glasses for the others, please." _

_"Celebrating what?" Lucas demanded. _

_Lincoln gazed at him. "For the first time in over a score and four years, Captain Desiree, the black madness that grew from the melancholy that has haunted my soul since I watched my mother murdered in Little Pigeon Creek in 1818 is gone. I still have the power Josef gave me…" — with that, he allowed his axe to float up into the air; seeing that made the newcomer laugh as she clapped her hands at such a display — "…but the anger and hate that has burned my soul since my encounter with Mister Booth at Ford's Theatre is…not there anymore." As the immortals both gaped at him and Mollie grinned before she hopped over the bar to get some glasses, Lincoln turned to the newcomer, who seemed not bothered by such revelations. "Now, if I may be so bold, may I have the pleasure of the name of the woman whom I will thank unto Eternity for saving me from such madness?" he asked as he allowed his axe to descend on the bar. _

_She smiled as she offered her hand. "Deannette Raeburn. My friends call me 'Dean,' Mister President," she introduced herself, her eyes twinkling with mirth. _

_"You guessed it that easy, Miss Raeburn?" Lucas asked as Lincoln came over to gently kiss the offered hand, that making the newcomer curtsey in return. _

_"My new friend has told me, sir, that you and this handsome gentleman here were actually born of the energy of the Earth itself," Dean stated, smirking with delight as Duncan blushed while she walked over to sit on a stool by the bar, ignoring the dead bodies lying about. "When you were fatally wounded, you became literally frozen in time, practically immortal. The only way you could truly die is to be decapitated; that, I believe, is the reason you have swords with you." She nodded her thanks as Mollie handed her a glass of whiskey. "The marshal is a type of person endowed with the ability to manipulate the life essence of Existence Itself, a power that is known to her as 'magic.' Our late hosts are vampires, though capable of surviving in the daylight thanks to a meson-based magical spell that they can transmit to each other through their bites when they seek to turn a victim into one of the so-called 'undead.' And President Lincoln was rendered practically immortal thanks to the meson in his blood…though my friend cautions you that there is no true immortality." _

_"That is the truth, Miss Raeburn," Duncan said as the others moved to relax. "So tell us: What is the truth behind the 'Tear of the Stars?' Why you of all people?" _

_Dean blinked before she sniffed. "There are, as I said, three specific qualifications that one must have to become the Host of a Power Jewel, sir." She sipped her whiskey. "I'll go in reverse order than what the Jewel itself told me they are listed. First, you must be a 'bearer of life.' In other words, a woman. Second, you must have endured either physical and/or emotional hardship while growing up. And third…" She bowed her head. "You must be an orphan or have been abandoned by your parents. And it must not be a natural death due to things like old age, of course." _

_Silence. _

_More silence. _

_Still more silence. _

_Then… _

_"My parents died just before I went to Salem — that's my magic school — back in '48 thanks to the cholera. But they loved me," Mollie whispered. "How'd you lose yours?" _

_"Murdered by my uncle ten years ago, along with my twin sister," Dean breathed out. "I'm originally from Lincoln County in Ontario, a village called Queenston on the Niagara River downriver from the Falls themselves. Ever since I lost my family, I've been on the move, looking over my shoulder to ensure my uncle hasn't caught up with me." _

_The others gazed in sympathy at her. "Never forget your parents and your sister, Miss Raeburn," Lincoln quietly urged. "Also, if such a heinous act ultimately allowed you to become qualified to earn the right to bear the Tear of the Stars unto your person, then never give up hope that you will avenge yourself on your uncle for his cruelty." _

_"Just don't let it consume you," Duncan added before nodding as Mollie handed him some whiskey. "As the Chinese are fond of saying, 'If you seek revenge, dig two graves.'" _

_"Wise words," Lucas noted. _

_The others nodded as they quietly enjoyed their drinks…_

* * *

A chilled bottle gently touched Lincoln's cheek. "HEY!" he yelped.

People gasped as they turned to see who had been able to sneak up on the vampire hunter with such stealth…before Methos laughed. "Nice one, Dean!"

"Sorry about that, Abe," Dean Raeburn — dressed in her modified field uniform composed of CADPAT temperate woodland trousers bloused into combat boots, a lime green flight jacket with the insignia of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry and her old home regiment in low visibility Velcro patches on her upper arms, her brevet rank of major general displayed on camouflage epaulette slip-ons at her shoulders, a T-shirt barely masking her Power Jewel under the jacket and a buff gold beret with a general officer's cap badge on her head — said with a twinkle in her eyes as she sat beside him, handing him the bottle of Jack Daniel's Old Number 7 she brought with her. "You looked like you were contemplating the evils of the world right now. Had to shock you out of it."

Laughter from the other immortals before they nodded their thanks as one of the Israeli prison guards who was standing close by to assist moved to conjure some glasses so they and their friends could enjoy a drink. "Actually, I was remembering when we first met in Fort Saint John and you — even in a small way — showed us how small we are in the face of Existence as a whole, Dean," Lincoln noted as Mollie took the bottle and uncorked it before she poured people drinks. "And remembering Lucas Desiree."

The Protector of All Life — even if she personally _loathed_ that title — perked. "What happened to him?" she asked, her voice suddenly going cold.

"The Game," Duncan sighed. "Howard Crowley got him."

Dean's eyebrow arched. "You got him?"

"Yep."

She shook her head. "We know what you're about to say. Don't bother, Dean," Methos stated as he gave her a knowing look. "You can't change Immortal tradition."

Dean scowled. "Some damned tradition, Methos," she sourly said as she swallowed her whiskey, then handed the glass to the wary-looking wizard — who was clearly wondering what the hell he had missed — before she got up and walked away.

"Dang it, Dean!" Mollie snapped as she moved to follow.

Lincoln watched them go off towards the ruins of the World-Gate before he gazed on the others, all of whom had sad looks on their faces. "She does that to give you people some hope," the former president advised before he sipped his drink.

"It's still so hard to accept at times," Erno Jocszak noted.

"True. And she's not trying to FORCE you to accept it, Mister Jocszak. But she — and I suspect, Master Hosan before her — have looked on your duels with each other…"

"And sees a waste of good people's lives."

Eyes turned as Joe Dawson staggered up, leaning on his cane. "Mister Dawson," Lincoln said. "Come join us old folk and relax a spell. Have a drink."

"Never thought I'd ever share a drink with YOU of all people, Mister President. You normally don't come together with the type of immortals my group are interested in," Dawson noted with a smile as he sat down where Dean had been before nodding his thanks as the wizard came up with an empty glass for the retired Watcher to use.

Lincoln's eyebrow arched. "Your people can tell the difference?"

"We've watched the _Rittmeister_ over the years since he tends to interact with other immortals even if he's not part of the Game," Dawson replied. "We've known about what happened to you since right after he pulled you out of your tomb in Springfield in 1865. There are magicals amongst us like your friend." He nodded off towards Mollie. "Amazes me that the vampires you've hunted down over the years never tried to use us to learn more about you. There have been times we've lost members to them." Dawson gave Lincoln a concerned look. "You're worried about Sewell, aren't you?"

Methos gaped. "Adam Sewell?!"

"Who's that?" Amanda asked.

"He's often credited as the man who provoked the American Civil War from behind the scenes, Amanda," Alicia Mackenzie answered. "He was the hidden power behind Jefferson Davis since the magicals — though he never knew there were so many of them in America — wouldn't rebel against the federal government. He helped galvanize vampires — most of them daywalkers — into supporting his drive to make an independent nation by which vampires could rule over all. Like that 'Greater Good' nonsense Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore — before Albus wised up, of course — came up with to do away with the Statute of Secrecy and have wizards rule over 'muggles.'" She sneered that last word. "All of it — if you don't know, Carl — would have been fed on black slaves."

Carl paled before his features flushed; while most Immortals never bothered him because of the colour of his skin, he was still haunted by his past as a slave and the tortures African-Americans had suffered since the Civil War. "Please tell me, sir, that you got this son of a bitch in the end," he snarled as he turned to glare at Lincoln.

"So I believed until late yesterday, Mister Robinson," the former president coldly declared. "I thought I destroyed that man on a train heading to Gettysburg in 1863 just prior to the battle between Lee and Meade. My wife, God rest her, killed Adam's sister Valdoma when she tried to sneak into the White House at the same time…and this was even after the Department of Magic improved the defences there to protect my family after I lost my son Tad to one of them." As the immortals winced on hearing that — with tears of sympathy appearing the eyes of women like Amanda, Alicia, Ceirdwyn and Angelina de Valicourt; even if they couldn't have mothered their own children due to their immortality, they never escaped the nesting urge that hit from time to time thanks to their interacting with mortal female friends their physical age — the former lawyer breathed out, "So I was shocked beyond belief when one of Harry Potter's good friends transmitted a picture of that man — and his sister — she obtained thanks to her telepathically probing her brother's mind. It was a most cruel surprise."

"'Crystal-blood'…"

Eyes locked on Amanda. "What is it, Amanda?" Ceirdwyn asked.

"What the vampires in the cave said yesterday morning before the Friend of Dragons came to get the Black Maidens out of there, Kathy," the Norman-born thief explained. "They called her a 'crystal-blood.'" To Lincoln. "Mister President, is this all because of what happened to Liam and Bill when the Avalonians moved to rebuild Sunnydale?"

"Most likely, yes," Lincoln stated. "Now, as we all know, the Avalonians would never dream of FORCING vampires back into mortal lives as adopted members of their race. It goes against all they fundamentally believe in because of what the Niphentaxians forced them through until February. From what I read over the HyperNet about how William and Liam became normal people again, it started totally by accident."

"I heard about that," Matthew stated. "The woman who did that was from a neighbouring town who lost friends to the vampires but never could do something about it since that DNA loyalty lock that kept the Avalonians enslaved affected her; her 'master' didn't want to break their cover, of course. I forgot her name, though. I do know that she volunteered to join the Sunnydale Restoration Committee in helping rebuild the town. Spike went there one night in April to talk them out of it. That's when Drusilla came. Mad as a March hare as she always was…and determined to 'win' her man back."

"What happened, Matt?" Carl asked.

"She noted this girl speaking to Spike," Matthew answered. "The lady was friendly and respectful to him, didn't do anything provocative at all. She knew he was a vampire and was interested in learning about all the things he's experienced over the years. And poor Bill…" He shrugged as an amused smile crossed his face. "He had NEVER encountered a mortal woman before that accepted him, faults and all, from the get-go; not even Angel after the gypsies got through with him or Buffy Summers' gang were willing to trust the poor man at first." As the others nodded, Matthew sipped his whiskey. "Ms. Keeble took it the wrong way and attacked Mr. Pratt with a stake."

"That should have killed him right then and there!" Methos noted.

"Well, our Avalonian friend was quick to force him to swallow some of her blood to keep him alive," Matthew answered. "It was meson versus wood. Meson won."

"As it always should, especially with the presence of Sagussan DNA in that young lady's blood," Lincoln mused before sipping his drink. "William is 160 years old. If he had been born Sagussan, he'd be physically twenty-nine. Still young by their standards."

"Indeed," Matthew affirmed with a nod. "As Ms. Keeble sensed her lover undergo that transformation — which is bloody painful, by the way — she went berserk and tried to attack the 'mean woman' who 'hurt her Spikey so.' This time, it was vampire-enhanced psionic powers against a woman who could see the Veil of Eternity in her mind's eye."

"We can guess who won," Carl noted with a smirk.

The others laughed as they imagined what might have happened. Being able to literally SEE the Te'a, the very Power of Eternity Itself in all Its Vastness, was one of a post-Awakening Avalonian's more amazing — and frightening to the uninitiated — powers. "So I assume that when this lady — on realizing that she was really dealing with two people that she had unintentionally hurt, vampire or no — got her senses back, she called up to the factory to send a spare body for Drusilla to undergo a body-swap," Erno finished.

"And Drusilla regained something of her sanity back along the way, especially after Avalonian genetics bound her and Spike together in a _marei'cha_ bond," Matthew finished. "Naturally, the lady who forced them into that was more than happy to 'marry' them!"

Amanda laughed. "Oh, I heard about that!"

"C'mon, Amanda! What happened?!" Angelina's husband Robert demanded.

"This is what Liam told me," the millennia-old thief answered. "After Drusilla woke up and her heart did the flip-flops when she saw Spike for the first time as an Avalonian, this girl — I don't know her name, by the way — decided to play Miss Matchmaker. She took Spike's hands and made him hold's Drusilla's hands. Then she pointed to him." Here, Amanda mimed pointing at someone. "'You do!' she said. 'I do?' he asked. She then pointed to Drusilla. 'You do, too!' Fortunately, Drusilla was a little quicker on the uptake." As the others laughed, he smirked. "'I do indeed,' she declared. And the lady then said, 'In the name of Creation Itself that blesses us all with life — even for those called "undead"…which is a misnomer since they are as living as anyone else; it's not their fault that they are forced to endure such weird dietary requirements — I hereby declare you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.'" As the others whooped and laughed, Amanda smirked. "Even if he still was in pain, Spike appreciated the joke. I even hear they're planning to start a family now."

"What about Angel?" Duncan asked.

"Once he found out, Liam said that if Bill could do it, so could he," Amanda stated. "I bet he rather came to regret it after he got through it."

More laughter. "So what are you doing here, Abraham?" Methos asked.

"I need to know what are Adam's connections — if any — to Josef, Methos," Lincoln stated. "When Josef pulled me out of my crypt in '65, he stated that he saved me because he didn't care to allow the man who destroyed a person who betrayed him to die at the hands of a mere 'child.' The 'child' was John Wilkes Booth, I realized. I've long suspected Josef ultimately meant Adam…but now I need to know something."

"And I — being as old as Mister Sewell — would be the best person to ask since Vlad Tayčéško is restricted by his oaths to _never_ interfere in 'mundane' matters without a confirmed threat from an inter-dimensional source…and Hosan Hirosuke never dealt with the man, so you can't ask Dean," the oldest Immortal alive concluded.

The American nodded. "Yes."

Methos sighed. "Well, here's what I do know…"

* * *

Schloss Greifswald on Rügen, that moment…

She hated being alone in this place.

She really, _really_, _**really**_ hated being alone in this place.

As much as serving Wolfram and Hart had been an eye-opening experience to her…

…learning of the _**one**_ being that the "senior partners" — and now, after spending even a short time in this beautiful manor house overlooking the Greifswald Bodden, she was not ashamed at the idea of NOT emphasizing that title for the three ancient demons that had helped create one of the most powerful and influential international companies on Earth today — would cower from had rocked her worldview like nothing else.

And it was understandable, of course.

Her name was Meagan Schwartz. She was the only daughter of Marius Black, a squib exiled from one of Britain's most prominent wand-wizard families shortly before the start of the Great Depression. Outraged at being treated as such, Marius would eventually flee to Germany, changed his name to a rough approximation of the local term for "black," then offered his services to Gellert Grindelwald. Glad to have such a prime source of personal intelligence concerning one of the most powerful families of Britain at his fingertips, the then-master of the Elder Wand used Marius and others like him who had come across the North Sea — with the assistance of some interesting devices given to them by the Undying Lord himself that allowed them all to simulate the magic they couldn't consciously use — so that they could serve as advanced scouts to probe targets such as Hogwarts, Azkaban and the Ministry of Magic for destruction.

Such reconnaissance paid off handsomely during World War Two thanks to people such as Marius Schwartz (_né_ Black). Azkaban Prison was wrecked in 1939 and its population of dementors burned out of there, rendering the place useless for five years. Two years later, the Ministry headquarters in London was assaulted to ensure the loyalty stones that had entrapped millions of magicals in the colonies for years were destroyed…and also avenge the deaths of the relatives of the British members of the Schwarze Mädchen. Hogwarts itself would be attacked in mid-1944, though that last battle wasn't been as successful as the other missions on British soil by the forces of the Magische Reichsarmee thanks to the intervention of a team of American magicals led by then-Colonel Mollie Bean. That — as Grindelwald's lieutenants later realized — proved that such attacks on enemy territory should have been left solely to the Black Maidens to plan and execute; their competence in carrying out lightning raids having been proven time and time again across Europe since the war's beginning.

That attack also allowed Marius to exact his revenge on the family that abandoned him.

"_Consider this my parting present to you all, sister dear_," the squib had told his older sister Cassiopeia when he had caught her alone in the Black family townhouse on Grimmauld Place while elements of the 8th Magical Jäger Brigade were battering down Hogwarts' wards. "_From this day on, the family magic will slowly drain from all of you until within five generations, there will be NO more Blacks who will have magic. And the only way to avoid such a fate…_" Here, he moved to teleport away. "_You and yours will have to_ **renounce** _the family motto once and for all_." And after he wiped her mind clean of that information, he returned back to Germany, his vengeance complete.

Unfortunately, Marius hadn't considered that the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black would report what happened to then-clan leader Sirius Arcturus Black. And while the other members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld dismissed such an act as a cruel hoax, Marius' paternal uncle knew better; he had seen the damage Grindelwald's forces had unleashed first hand and he knew that the master of the Elder Wand had won the Undying Lord's favour. Fortunately, Sirius had the means to strike back: The Black family magic, which Marius was bound to even if he couldn't use magic himself. Thus, prior to the Battle of Greifinswald two months prior to the Battle of Nurmengard, Sirius killed Marius with a curse meant for traitors to the family.

Sirius never realized that Marius had married and fathered a daughter by then.

And he never knew until he died that Marius' wife Rowanna had added to the curse her beloved husband unleashed on his relatives to ensure that those who madly followed the Black family motto _Toujours Pur_ would have their souls sacrificed to demons.

Since such happened _**after**_ people had died, there was no way to learn this…

…until Sirius' namesake and great-grandson had an interesting encounter…

* * *

_Gringotts in Diagon Alley, Tuesday 9 April 1996, early morning… _

_"You're Marius' daughter…?" _

_"Yes," Meagan said with a nod and a smile. "I apologize for my physical youth, but being part of Wolfram and Hart does permit certain concessions to the employees." _

_Gazing at the raven-haired, grey-eyed beauty before him, Sirius Orion Black would swear on his magic that Meagan Rowanna Schwartz was about Harry Potter's age, which would make her a fifth-year at the Nibelung Academy of Magic outside the German city of Worms. In truth, his second cousin once removed had graduated from Nibelung — the last magical school in Germany after the purges launched in the wake of Grindelwald's War thanks to the Soviets and the Americans — in 1954, six years before Sirius' birth. Even better, she had been at the head of her class — Nibelung, despite it not being as old as the "Big Three" schools of Hogwarts, Beauxbâtons and Durmstrang, was a very tough institution when it came to teaching magic — which easily debunked the moronic nonsense pureblood traditionalists said about squibs amounting to nothing at all. _

_Nodding in understanding, he then took a deep breath. "Am I doomed, Meagan?" _

_"In what way?" she asked, surprised by that question. _

_"Your father's curse. As family head — which I became even if I was in Azkaban when Grandfather Arcturus died — I learned of what your father did in 1944. And knowing you now work for Wolfram and Hart, I can guess there's a demonic side to that curse." _

_Meagan genuinely smiled at him, impressed that Sirius had deduced that quite easily. "You need not worry about the Senior Partners — or any of the other Old Ones — claiming your soul after you finally pass from this life, cousin. You — just by your being sorted into Gryffindor in 1971 and later befriending your future cousin-in-law James Potter — showed you wouldn't accept the stupid beliefs of your relatives that would have caused their descendants to become squibs eventually hadn't Father hastened it. So did Andromeda when she married Theodore Tonks. You need not fear the Shadowlands when the Grim finally comes to take your soul within the next few months." _

_"And Harry?" _

_Meagan smirked. "With your permission, Senior Director?" she asked. _

_Erlking — who hadn't been fazed at all when the beautiful lawyer from the demon-controlled international law firm had come in requesting to meet with his current client — nodded his permission. "Please do, Mistress Meagan," he bade. _

_She held up her hand. "I, Meagan Rowanna Schwartz, swear on my life, soul and magic that I will never claim the headship of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of the Marquessate of Grimmauld…nor defy the wishes of the current Patriarch of said House when it comes to choosing his successor. This I swear, so mote it be." _

_She glowed with magic to "seal the deal," which made Sirius smile. "If I may, old friend?" he then asked the smirking goblin behind his desk. _

_"Go ahead, Sirius," Erlking said with a nod. _

_Drawing his wand, Sirius declared, "I, Sirius Orion Black, Marquess of Grimmauld, do renounce the actions of my predecessor concerning Marius Arcturus Black and welcome him and his progeny back into the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld as a cadet branch, holding place of cognatic primogeniture after the Patriarch's chosen line over all other branches. Before Magic Itself, this I decree, so mote it be." _

_His body glowed for a moment to "seal the deal." Once that was done, Sirius put his wand away before opening his arms. "Welcome home, cousin." _

_Meagan laughed as she accepted his embrace. "It's good to be home, cousin." _

_"You accept it so easily, Sirius," Erlking noted with an amused cackle. _

_Both humans sat down before him. "Unlike most British magicals, my family's really had no problems with Wolfram and Hart, Erlking," Sirius noted. "Yes, they're controlled by demons…but as barristers, they're top-notch. Given what I've learned about how a certain Supreme Mugwump has treated my godson while I was enjoying my 'vacation' in Azkaban, I think it's high time that people in Britain are reminded that they are NOT at the top of the food chain. Meagan can help if she's allowed to by her superiors." _

_"I am allowed to do that for this occasion, Senior Director," Meagan announced. _

_Erlking nodded. Like Sirius, the goblins of Gringotts had no problems dealing with representatives of Wolfram and Hart. Unlike the Marquess of Grimmauld however, those like Erlking knew of a secret about the beings that controlled Wolfram and Hart that — if it got out to those who would be affected the most by such revelations…and was believed to be truth; that was_ **always** _the key! — would diminish the overall influence of that company disastrously. Given what was currently brewing in the California town of Sunnydale which would soon see a new Slayer called to service, the Wolf, Ram and Hart would NOT welcome such revelations. For the latest of that long line of demon-powered vampire killers would be a woman who — according to the Mistresses of Lore, the wise precognitives who were the most trusted advisers of the Board of Directors at the International Mercantile Bank of Gringotts — would defy ALL expectations and live a very long, healthy life. Not to mention usher in an age that would rival the time when the Praetorian himself, Lord Rjazán', underwent his Test 25,000 years ago to literally rise above ALL divine influence…then, with the help of the Undying Lord, banished the Old Ones back to the dimension of their birth and destroyed the Seed of Wonder the demons had created in hopes of countering the power and the influence of the Tear of the Stars, thus ultimately ensuring that Magic could touch all living things on Earth. _

_But that need not be spoken of at this meeting. _

_And despite his being friends with Sirius Black, Erlking didn't feel it necessary to publicly note of such things even if the young wizard was soon to face his own death. _

_After all, why would a magical of any sort — who supposedly "sold" her soul to demons — SWEAR on that selfsame soul when she made a magical oath…?!_

* * *

Meagan smiled as she gazed out the windows of the sitting room onto the grounds and the ancient rock where Uchida Ryūsei had been beheaded by Margareta Hecht in 1937.

_You didn't know how much helping you cost me, Sirius…but I would do it again if I needed to do it. Even if I became allied with demons because of what Mother did to ensure Father gained his revenge, that didn't make my feelings go away…!_

Ever since she was a child, Meagan Schwartz had been filled with tales about her father's suffering at his family's hands and how he had allied with the so-called "Dark Lord of Europe" — who was simply just a greedy man who wanted to have power over his fellow beings and came up with that silly "Greater Good" nonsense to win support to his "cause" — to gain justice for being banished from his family for the "crime" of being a squib…when it had been long proven that dormant magical lines would eventually restore themselves thanks to interbreeding with non-magicals. How Marius — who had been forced to confront the hypocrisy of pureblood traditions head-on when he was thrown out of Grimmauld Place in 1927 after he failed to get an invitation to attend Hogwarts — felt that his whole world had come to an end. How he had been heartbroken because his own beloved sister Cassiopeia came to detest him because he was incapable of using magic like she did…and how that agony turned into pure hatred that would have seen his family eventually wiped out hadn't people like Sirius Black and Andromeda Tonks woke up to that hypocrisy and walked away from the "always pure" beliefs of their ancestors to forge their own paths and embrace the wider world beyond.

And while neither of them would live to see how the family was slowly rebuilding itself into a brighter future thanks to Harry Potter and his extended family, both Sirius and Andromeda had not faced the Shadowlands — the dark pits forged by mass human agony and allowed thanks to human beliefs in Hell to be influenced by the Old Ones and their kin — on their passing from this life to what lay beyond the Veil of Eternity, going to enjoy their "heavenly" rewards alongside friends and loved ones. Meagan had been happy to ensure Sirius would face his fate with open eyes and a smile, knowing he wouldn't be subject to the true power of Marius' curse when he was flung through the Veil of Death at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries two months after he had met Marius' own daughter at Gringotts during the Easter holidays of Harry's fifth year.

When they learned of it, the Senior Partners were NOT amused.

Their punishment: Force Meagan to stand guard over Schloss Greifswald **_alone_** until such time as she learned the company's secrets were NOT to be revealed to ANYONE!

And while she simply hated being alone in this place with NO ONE to talk to…

…she had learned quite a lot in her fourteen years of effective exile here.

Before she was sent to Rügen in the summer of 1996, Meagan knew — and had accepted with a stoic calm that won the admiration of her peers at the Berlin branch of Wolfram and Hart — that her service to the Wolf, Ram and Hart would ultimately demand her soul and see her condemned to Hell once she finally died and slipped out of this existence.

After coming here, Meagan learned that there WERE ways to avoid such a fate.

But the price one had to pay to do that was quite high:

You had to accept in _**every**_ part of your soul that there was a Power — Faceless, Formless, Nameless — that was BEYOND those beings called "gods" and "demons"…

…and hand-in-hand with that, you ALSO had to accept _**without question**_ that such beings either were created or — if they had hailed from other dimensions as the Senior Partners and the other Old Ones did — were given power over mortals in this realm by that Power which, for lack of a better term, was simply called "faith."

Accept both…

…and you were truly free to pass through the Veil of Eternity at the end of your mortal life without any fear of facing something akin to "hell."

Even if it would be hard to do so thanks to the constant tidal waves of influence one's culture and society forced on a child as he or she was growing up, it _**was**_ possible.

That was something no self-respecting demon EVER wanted to see happen.

After all, without a belief in Hell and the influence of demons, how could beings such as the Wolf, Ram and Hart be able to sustain themselves?

THAT had been Meagan's crime in the eyes of the Senior Partners.

By telling Sirius that he would _never_ face the Shadowlands after he was thrown through the Veil of Death by his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, his soul escaped the grasp of the leaders of Wolfram and Hart — thanks to what Marius and Rowanna Schwartz had done in 1944 to the former's relatives — and passed through the Veil of Eternity unharmed.

Even if it was just _**one**_ soul at the end…

"They are quite greedy, aren't they?"

"_Ja_, they are," Meagan answered. "After all, they have so many…"

It hit her.

"Who…?"

She slowly turned…

…before nearly passing out in stunned disbelief on seeing the man now standing at the entrance to his sitting room, an amused smile on his ordinary face — framed by stylishly-combed black hair with long sideburns, an almost indecently-thin moustache and goatee surrounding his lips, said face pierced by ageless grey eyes — as he gazed on this young woman who had been forced to watch over his house for fourteen years.

"_Mein Freiherr_…?!" Meagan croaked out.

A thin eyebrow arched. "You're Marius Black's daughter, aren't you?" _Rittmeister_ Josef Wilhelm _Freiherr_ von Taserich — as he was known these days, Meagan knew; his real name had been long lost to history…and she had not been able to find records of that name in his vast library, which she had visited time and time again during her stay here — calmly asked as he moved to take a seat in his favourite lounge chair.

She shakily nodded her head. "_J-j-jawohl_, _mein Freiherr_…!"

A hand came up as Meagan felt a sure of peace flood her from head to toe. "Calm down, child," Taserich stated. "Much that I know I possess quite a reputation amongst you magicals, I don't normally bite." He then peered at her — as Meagan felt something wash through her body from head to toe — before he hummed. "Ah, I understand now. You're part of Wolfram and Hart. An amusing choice of name for that group. Part of the payment your mother offered to allow your father to avenge himself on his kin?"

"_Jawohl_, _mein Freiherr_," she stated with a bow of her head.

"So why are you here then?"

A sigh escaped her. "I comforted a cousin who wouldn't have been affected by my father's curse by telling him he wouldn't face the Shadowlands."

Taserich blinked before a delighted laugh escaped him. "Ah! Those three don't like it when potential prey escapes them!" he exclaimed before waving her to sit in the chair across from him. "So they sent you — as _**punishment**_ — to the ONE place on Earth outside Vladímir's castle in Russia or Hirosuke's dōjō in Japan where the truth of Existence is there for those who have the intelligence to go research it?! How stupid!"

She sat down as she had been bade before an amused smile crossed her face. "They told me that you had allowed them to make use of this place if they needed it."

"Before you came here?"

"_Ja_."

"And after you came here?"

"I learned of that truth you just spoke of, _mein Freiherr_…and how ignorant the Wolf, Ram and Hart really are concerning what you have in this place. Especially your delightful library and scroll lockers." Meagan then shrugged before she sat back in her chair, her smile slipping as her grey eyes teared. "Once it all sank into me, I realized that if I left this place, they would immediately seek to kill me to ensure my silence over such matters," she added. "They trapped me here, sir…"

"Oh, if they only WISHED they had that type of power over this place, much less those I allow to come here," he said with an amused smirk. Noting her surprised look, his eyebrow arched. "My dear child, do you honestly think I would have allowed people to live in _my_ house — even when I was staying on Yiziba these last sixty-five years! — without ensuring they could be safe as long as they didn't cause harm here?"

Meagan croaked out, "_**Yiziba**_…?!"

"_Ja_," he breathed out. "The Seeker's Forge, where Deannette's Power Jewel was first made three billion years ago at the time the First Ones ascended to a place even beyond the Veil of Eternity…as shocking as that will sound to you. Currently the home of a race whose overall power so frightens the 'norms' and 'sames' on other worlds that speaking the very NAME of that planet or the NAME of its inhabitants is _verboten_. The origin point of all mesonium in Existence, even that which flows through my blood. The one place beings like the so-called 'senior partners' would consider their own version of 'Hell' given what mesonium ultimately would do to them…as people such as Abraham Lincoln readily demonstrated during the aptly-named 'Score and Four' when they were foolish enough to try to turn him." He shook his head. "Such limited vision. I helped them maintain ties to this dimension out of _**pity**_ given that their need to feed on the power faith and belief granted them had become so addictive…and they presume they have power over something that is MINE? I do not think so."

She blinked. "Um, so…?"

"Oh, it's easily corrected, young lady. Especially given a wonderful rumour I heard recently; that's why I came back here just now," he breathed out.

"Welcome home, Josef."

Taserich's eyebrow arched before he looked over. "Hello, Vladímir."

Meagan blinked before she turned to look…

…then collapsed to the floor in a dead faint after realizing who just came here.

"She took that quite well," Vladímir Rúsalovič Tayčéško noted.

The Undying Lord shrugged. "Children have no stamina these days."

"Indeed," the Praetorian Guardian of Earth mused…

* * *

Nurmengard, that moment…

"Deanie…!"

Dean sighed. "What?"

"You got THAT smirk on your face!" Mollie scolded.

The leader of the War Hawks shrugged before puffing her cigar.

_Abe should be happy to hear about this_, she mused to herself as she cast her meta sight in the direction of Rügen and the pair of multiple millennia old beings there…

* * *

The Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts, mid-afternoon…

Minerva McGonagall was trying not to smirk.

It would be undignified to do something like that.

Especially in the presence of the Friend of Dragons.

As the current headmistress of Hogwarts made her way down the worn trail that led from the edge of the forest near Rubeus Hagrid's cottage to the place where practitioners of the old faiths went to perform their private devotions, she tried not to shudder again as she remembered that incident some months ago when the staff and students of the United Kingdom's primary wand-magical school were given a very surprising demonstration of the sheer power of ancient Sagussan mesonium-based technology.

It was the start of a normal day of classes in early March. A normal-born first year Gryffindor named Catherine Fleming had been walking towards the Grand Staircase at the seventh floor landing, chatting with a friend…and not paying attention before she literally found herself stepping out into open air thanks to one of the staircases swinging away at the last moment. As people watched in horror, the young native of Coatbridge east of Glasgow began to tumble down towards the ground and certain death. Before any of the prefects could use a summoning spell to save her, a flash of light allowed a beautiful Japanese girl appearing to be the equivalent of a third year or fourth year student at Hogwarts, dressed in a medium blue sailor suit-type uniform, to appear, catching the screaming Catherine single-handed while holding a two metre-tall staff with a glowing crystal of meson the size of a person's head in her other hand. Drifting serenely to the ground floor, the stranger then placed the wide-eyed girl down before she waved her hand to allow Catherine's book bag — which had spilled all its contents when she had slipped off the landing — to appear, then she handed it over.

"_Young Mistress Catherine, you certainly should know by now that these stairs move all the time_," she then calmly admonished the younger girl, who was trying not to break down and cry in fright as she realized how close she came to dying. "_It is no different than crossing a street. You look both ways to ensure all is safe before commencing the endeavour. Do be careful in the future; I might be distracted by other things to save you — or ANY of you…!_" — here, she looked around and up to gaze upon a sea of stunned teachers and students — "_…the next time this happens_."

The stranger then gazed on Minerva herself, who was trying to maintain some sense of decorum…even if she nearly had a heart attack on realizing that one of her precious little lion cubs — even if she was no longer head of Gryffindor, she still cared for those sorted into her old house — had nearly died under her watch. "_Wise Mistress Minerva, I would strongly recommend the installation of safety barriers at all the landings near this interesting Chinese puzzle the founders of this grand old school placed here to prevent this sort of tragedy from ever happening again. Now, if you'll all kindly excuse me — and please extend my sincerest apologies to the Lady of Hogwarts herself for entering her halls without prior leave — there are some miscreants who need to be soundly thrashed before they abscond with some helpless, unhatched dragons. Methinks they're former alumni of this great school…which clearly demonstrates they didn't take to heart Hogwarts' motto. The Wise Lord's blessings upon you all_."

And in a flash of energy, she was gone…

…and soon enough — after the report of a strange woman with a mysterious energy staff having stopped an act of poaching at the dragon reserve in Wales near Snowdon not far from Meridiana broke out in _The Daily Prophet_ — the legend of "_**her**_" was born.

In the wake of that incident, Minerva DID do as that young lady had suggested. As soon as she gave a stern lecture to all the students about being careful at places like the Grand Staircase, she hired some of Gringotts' best warders and construction engineers to put in proper safety barriers — augmented with blocking charms to catch people who might slip off a landing — in all the potential danger zones.

Ever since that incredible day, the headmistress of Hogwarts — as did millions of magicals on both Earth and Nerio — continued to speculate about the identity of the Friend of Dragons; like many, Minerva had to wonder about the reporters at daily broadsheets like the _Prophet_ when they settled on a mere _pronoun_ of all things to designate this girl…especially in the wake of all the interesting terms they coined for Harry Potter over the years. And while the Friend of Dragons — Minerva personally used the Scots Gaelic translation of that term, _Caraid nan Dràgon_, when speaking of that young lady — continued to effortlessly elude those such as Luna Lovegood and her father Xenophilius from learning her identity, there were all the other obvious clues:

She was an Avalonian, Terran-turned, originally from Shikoku in Japan.

She was a practicing Zoroastrian, though respectful of all other faiths.

She had endured a hellish tragedy whose full dimensions remained a mystery.

And she was protecting friends who had obviously endured that selfsame tragedy.

In doing that, she was forced to keep silent about even her _name_.

As to why that was so…

A shudder ran through Minerva as she considered that.

In all honesty, part of her _**didn't**_ want to know…

…even if it was quite glaringly obvious to many people that this strange girl was cut out of the very same cloth as Harry Potter himself.

"A good afternoon to you, Wise Mistress. Lovely day, is it not?"

The headmistress jolted on hearing that voice before she looked up to see the Friend of Dragons standing just outside the circle of bluestone trilithons which surrounded the three stone altars — the number of altars was believed to have been chosen in honour of either the sacred triad of Taranis, Esus and Toutatis or the three mother goddesses later called _Matronae_ by the Romans — where people went to pray to the divinities they acknowledged as their personal spiritual guides. A glance towards the altars revealed the various offerings made in recent weeks by people like Rubeus Hagrid (who prayed for the gods' protection of all the magical animals he loved so much), Filius Flitwick (who always prayed to human and goblin divinities for the safety of his beloved students) and Severus Snape (who had embraced his mother's personal faith in the Morrígan, the Irish war goddess, in flat-out rejection of his father's puritanical Calvinism which had heavily contributed to the tense conditions within the Snape home in the Spinner's End part of the old mill town of Cokeworth in Derbyshire near Matlock).

And sure enough — Minerva had, before entering the Forest when she had sensed the presence of the Friend of Dragons so close to Hogwarts, forged a translation spell bubble around her so that she could interpret the younger woman's words…which were, no doubt, spoken in the tongue used to write the holy book of her faith, the Avesta — the Friend of Dragons had been offering a benediction, calling upon Ahura Mazdā to bestow His Blessings to the living beings to whom those who came to this sacred temple of ancient faith had prayed to their own divinities to protect.

_How utterly Japanese_, the headmistress mused to herself as she remembered what Yomigawa Tsukiko had once told her about the pluralistic approach people from Japan used when it came to religion, especially the balance between the demands of Shintō and Buddhism.

Even if this girl was a true Zoroastrian, she was also a true native of Japan.

"It's a quiet day," Minerva mused as she came to stand beside the other girl. "Much more quiet than what I heard just happened down in Diagon."

Inada Mizuho smirked. "Not surprising. Were you informed of what the Lady Raven and the Lady Ariel discovered after tapping into their brothers' memories?"

The headmistress blinked before she snarled out, "Aye! What the devil is the matter with people these days?! Your sisters mean no harm to anyone, not even to the undead! What happened to Spike and Drusilla in Sunnydale was an accident, no more and no less! That doesn't mean that those of Avalon would seek to force vampires back into the sun…even if it would do them a world of good in the long term."

"True…but the Wise Lord granted us His Favour when He allowed the Black Maidens to touch the minds of the Immortals who went to Nurmengard yesterday morning to honour their fallen friends, thus attracting my friend's attention and seeing them released from their decades of imprisonment," the would-be warrior-priestess from another dimension and ten years back in time noted. "Atop that, the ever-jovial Master Tȟatȟáŋka…" — she stuttered the name of the famous Lakota chief's name as she found it hard to properly speak the voiceless uvular fricative together with the voiceless alveolar stop that was the initial sound of the first two syllables in that name — "…sensed this was soon to happen, then warned Master Abraham about this so he could come to merry old Albion to ensure it didn't get out of control."

Minerva nodded as she tried not to feel giddy on remembering the first time she had met the legendary Rail-Splitter. Shortly after she became the transfiguration professor at Hogwarts in 1956, a rogue daywalker vampire took up residence in Hogsmeade so that he could attack students in hope of making his own army of turned wizards and witches for some foolish reason. On one weekend when the students got the chance to go into the village to spend time away from the castle, one particular girl was accosted by the vampire. Before Minerva could summon a wood stake to drive into the beast's heart, a man in funeral black dived out of _**nowhere**_ to fling the vampire off the poor child, then lay open the creature's throat with a well-aimed strike from his woodsman's axe. Once the monster was dead thanks to the silver and meson in the blade, the Rail-Splitter — Minerva had heard the vampire scream out that accursed phrase before he was attacked — guided the shivering girl over to the transfiguration professor's side before he gave her a lanky, amused smile that nearly drove the native of Edinburgh to her knees.

"_You would believe, Professor McGonagall, they would_ know _better than this_."

Then he walked off, calm as could be before teleporting himself away.

Minerva was _**so**_ overwhelmed by such an act that she forgot to ask him his name…!

"Good afternoon, Wise Master Filius. A pleasurable day, is it not?"

The headmistress turned to see the jovial master duellist and charms professor walk towards them, an amused smirk on his face on noting who ELSE had come to visit the three altars this day. "It is indeed. Heard you were a little busy in Diagon today."

"I thought Lord Harry closed off all communications from that wonderful alley as soon as the situation was secure to keep news from reaching Mister Sewell," Mizuho noted.

Filius Flitwick scowled on hearing that name. "So it's true," he coldly declared as he moved to stand to Mizuho's side opposite Minerva. "That _beast_ is still 'alive'…!"

"He won't be for long," the would-be warrior-priestess from another dimension stated. "Denied the power of the Black Maidens, Sewell and his friends have now focused their attentions to those imprisoned in Azkaban. According to what was spoken of yesterday at the home of Theodore Nott on the Isle of Lundy, they plan to attack on Friday. Since I've no idea how many have allied themselves with Sewell — nor where they have gone and hid themselves as they await that moment — I could not realistically sweep in and deal with the matter without being assured of final success. Hence, Lord Harry's move to censor all news of this morning's delightful 'fun' in Diagon."

The older magicals nodded in understanding. Having been forced to live through TWO civil wars — even if the second one had been a brief and almost one-sided affair — they had both learned the ugly lessons of keeping things secret from the enemy to ensure none came to harm. "So what does bring you here today, my dear?" Filius then asked, an amused smile appearing under his thick moustache. "I would suspect your friends would be panicking right now given that you seemed to have disappeared on them."

"I briefly went up to assure them all was well," Mizuho stated as she hefted the Staff of Gihan. "But something caught my interest prior to delivering the Key of Gonebren to your fellow alumnus, the Wise Mistress Elizabeth Gibbon, before the vampires in Diagon were dealt with. It concerns Lord Harry's new house guest."

"Thérèse?" Minerva asked; she and the other senior teachers at Hogwarts had been let in on the secret of the future Duchess of Kyme Eau shortly after the last fragment of the soul of Tom Riddle had been given new life as Thérèse Peverell.

"Aye. Look at that."

With a wave of the Staff, she allowed a faint golden line of magic to appear in the sky off to the south, leading from some place way past the horizon to probe into Hogwarts itself. "That's heading into the residence wing!" Filius stated as he drew his wand and sent a diagnostic probe out towards the light; he suspected the Friend of Dragons would allow his spell to reach all the way to such an extreme range. A moment later, a ghostly parchment appeared before him. Scanning what was there, he gaped.

"Oh, my word…!" he exhaled. "Minerva, that's the magical link of a _**Life Debt**_!"

The headmistress gaped. "Merlin! Can you get us into the castle, lass?!"

Mizuho raised the Staff, teleporting all three away…

* * *

…to let them appear in a corridor in the residential wing, just outside one of the entrances to Ravenclaw Tower. Looking around, the professors blinked before they gazed into the doorway of a girl's lavatory, one that had been closed for years. Atop the new physical barrier blocking anyone from stepping inside, this room was also shielded thanks to wards added in the wake of Catherine Fleming's accident months before; this was to ensure the entrance of a certain chamber buried below the dungeons would remain blocked in case another parseltongue showed up. "Oh, my word!" Filius breathed out, the complete unreality of the moment nearly causing him to faint. "This is…"

"Hello? Oh, Minerva! Filius! What are you two doing here?"

Mizuho smiled as the ghost of a rather nerdy-looking girl — who reminded the would-be warrior-priestess a lot of her own classmate from Shiroiwa, Noda Satomi — in the robes of a Ravenclaw from the mid-1940s drifted through the physical barrier blocking the lavatory from the hallway. As Filius and Minerva both gaped on seeing the slender golden line that Mizuho had shown them at the three altars was now linked to the ethereal heart of this young woman born in 1926 — over a month before her more infamous classmate and the man who guaranteed she would die near the end of her fifth year at Hogwarts — Mizuho could only sigh. "Good afternoon to you, Mistress Myrtle," she said with a polite bow. "Much that I don't wish to disturb you, I was wondering if…"

An embarrassed giggle escaped Myrtle O'Neil — "Moaning Myrtle" as she was commonly known here — as she stared at this girl in the odd school uniform. "'Mistress?!' I'm no mistress!" she protested before blinking. "Hey! You're Japanese!"

"The clear mark of a potential heiress of Wise Mistress Rowena," Mizuho dryly stated, which made Myrtle blush — if a ghost COULD blush! — before she sighed. "As I was asking, Mistress Myrtle, did you by any chance do something to the late Master Thomas Riddle that could have constituted the forging of a Life Debt between you?"

That made the ghost blink. "Tom?" she asked before her face dissolved into anguish. "How could he do that to me?!" she moaned out. "How could he kill me like that?! Why?! I never wanted to hurt him! How could he be so mean to me…?!"

As she began to wail — though Minerva and Filius were quick to note that Myrtle hadn't done as she normally did and fled into the piping leading to the lavatory to be alone — Mizuho moaned. "Have you located her mortal remains, my friend?" she asked.

_**Located, Controller**_, the Staff reported, causing Myrtle to stop crying as she stared at the pulsing ball of crystal at the end of the long metal staff the Japanese girl was now holding. **_Do you wish a replacement body for Myrtle Ursula O'Neil templated?_**

"Do it."

**_Done._**

The Staff's crystal flared…

…before a bolt of energy lashed out to strike the floor nearby, causing something human-shaped to appear. As the castle seemed to quake slightly in echo of such an incredible display of power, the strange shape solidified into the unmoving body of a young woman with dark brown hair tied in simple ponytails to hang over her collarbones, the body sheathed in a standard gestation suit worn by non-templated Avalonians prior to their physical forms were properly moulded before final awakening. Ignoring the gaping looks from both Filius and Minerva at such a mind-boggling display of power, Mizuho then gazed on Myrtle. "Your new body awaits you, Mistress Myrtle."

Myrtle blinked before she turned…

…and then gaped on seeing what now lay on the floor nearby. "What…?"

She then cried out in fright as energy formed around the unmoving body, reaching out to gently embrace the ghost. Myrtle seemed to freeze at that moment as surprise crossed her face before she closed her eyes…and then faded forever from view as the energy that had entrapped her spirit flowed back into the body. Seeing that, Mizuho closed her eyes. "May the Wise Lord allow you to embrace the Frašōkərəti after so long being entrapped within the Shadowlands, Lady Myrtle," she whispered.

"The _nŏksbae_…!"

Minerva gaped at Filius. "What the devil does that have to do with THIS?!" she demanded as she waved at the unmoving bioroid on the floor nearby.

The charms master laughed. "Minerva, don't you remember what Lady Tsukiko told us about what Tom did when he split his soul apart?!" he demanded. "He mixed elements of the _nŏksbae_ rituals with what he discovered about creating horcruxi! A person was made a _nŏksbae_ when a dying wizard wishes to pass on his memories and knowledge to a worthy heir! That's how Thérèse was able to be created in the first place and become her own person! The magic of the _nŏksbae_ allowed Tom's soul fragment in Mistress Helga's cup to evolve into its own being!" He blinked before staring wide-eyed at the young would-be warrior-priestess standing nearby. "Which is no different…!"

"Than the _tre'cha_ process a dying Sagussan would employ to pass on her knowledge to an heir," Mizuho finished. "Aye, Master Filius! Thanks to Lord Voldemort's desire to escape death, he allowed his soul fragments to be touched by the benevolent magic of the _nŏksbae_ even if each fragment was cleanly broken thanks to acts of vulgar murder…which started the day the Lady Myrtle was slain by the basilisk trapped within the Chamber of Secrets below us just before the summer solstice of the Thirteenth Year of Shōwa. And given that he obviously owed a Life Debt to Lady Myrtle…"

"For what?!"

"The Yule Scream of 1938, Minerva."

Heads snapped around…

…as the recently templated bioroid sat up, peering at them as a light smile crossed her face. Noting that she was squinting, Mizuho sighed as she waved her hand, allowing a pair of reading glasses to appear over the newly-born girl's eyes. Blinking in surprise, the girl then nodded her thanks at the would-be warrior-priestess before she gazed once more at Minerva and Filius. "The _**Yule Scream**_?!" the headmistress gasped. "Ye would have been in your first year, lass! How the devil…?!"

"I'm a Ravenclaw, Minerva," the newly-created Myrtle stated. "I was researching spells left, right and centre right from the moment I was Sorted!" She blinked. "Or was that me? Was I programmed correctly? Am I Myrtle O'Neil?" She slumped. "I'm confused."

"No different than what the Lady Thérèse Peverell — who was bound to your other-self with a Life Debt bond before your awakening — felt on her awakening," Mizuho said as she leaned down to help Myrtle up. "But before we allow an omiai to occur to see if that Life Debt will evolve into a _marei'cha_ bond, let us prevail on the mistresses of the kitchens here to make you a nice sundae, then we'll get you some clothes."

Myrtle blinked. "I like ice cream!" She then seemed to deflate. "I think!"

Filius and Minerva gaped at her before they broke down and laughed…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) _Highlander_ character and situation notes:

**Matthew McCormick** first appeared in the fifth season episode "Manhunt." He was Carl Robinson's teacher.

Matthew's own teacher **Ceirdwyn** (AKA **Katherine McKearn**) first appeared in the third season episode "Take Back the Night."

**Lucas Desiree** first appeared in the first season episode "Innocent Man."

2) When it was first introduced in the 1860s, the **Medal of Honour** (short-form **MOH**) was held up by a standard suspension ribbon that was pinned onto a jacket in lieu of being worn around the neck; the latter design wasn't approved for use by the Navy until 1942 and the Army two years later; the Air Force version of the Medal of Honour (first approved in 1965) was designed from the start as a neck ribbon. Atop that, the ribbon pattern design was much different; in the original Army Medal of Honour, the ribbon was patterned after the Stars and Stripes flag, with a blue field where the ribbon was threaded into the suspension bar and thirteen mixed red-and-white stripes flowing down from the blue field towards the bar which was connected to the eagle's wings over the inverted star. This design remained the standard pattern for the Medal of Honour from 1862 to 1895, when the ribbon pattern was changed to red overall with a blue centre stripe embossed with a white stripe; that would remain until 1903 when the familiar light blue ribbon with thirteen silver stars in an upward-pointing arrowhead pattern was adopted. Atop that, the practice of awarding special badges to indicate a consecutive award — for the Medal of Honour, such is a bronze **'V' Device** — didn't officially come into play until very recently, when the practice of awarding separate Medals of Honour was officially abolished.

Thus, Mollie Bean has the right to wear the 1862 Army pattern of the Medal of Honour for her actions at the **Battle of Gettysburg** (1-3 July 1863) and the 1944 Army pattern of the Medal of Honour for her actions at the **Battle of the Gates of Nurmengard** (21 June 1945), in respect to the few times military personnel were given subsequent awards of the Medal for different actions…or, in the case of five members of the United States Marine Corps who were awarded BOTH the Army and Navy versions of the Medal of Honour in ONE single event; such would not happen these days.

3) _Bockscar_ (always spelt as a single word) was a modified **Boeing B-29A Superfortress** heavy bomber (airplane serial **44-27297**) that was the weapons vehicle used in **Special Mission 16** to drop the **Fat Man** plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. Flown by then-Major **Charles Sweeney** (1919-2004), _Bockscar_ was first sent to target the city of Kokura (today part of the city of Kitakyūshū), but was diverted to Nagasaki due to inclement weather…which didn't help much as the clouds that covered the north end of Kyūshū pretty much covered the west end, throwing off the bombardier's aim and sending the bomb falling down in the northern sector of Nagasaki. After World War Two, _Bockscar_ was donated to the National Museum of the United States Air Force and is today displayed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton in Ohio.

4) Any statement concerning relatives of the author of _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_, **Seth Grahame-Smith**, said here is fictitious, of course.

5) **Nicolas de Brabant** (AKA **Nick Knight**), for those who don't remember, is the lead character of _Forever Knight_.

6) The poem recited by Duncan MacLeod in the first flashback scene is derived from the _AL:VH_ novel; it appears in the twelfth chapter, "'Starve the Devils.'"

7) Translations: **Gleann Fhionghain** — Scots Gaelic way of saying "Glenfinnan" (located seventy kilometres southwest of the city of **Inbhir Nis** ["Inverness"]); **CADPAT** — Literally "Canadian Disruptive Pattern," this is the digitally-designed camouflage combat pattern worn by soldiers in the Canadian military these days; **Toujours Pur** — Literally "Always Pure"; **Verboten** — Forbidden; **Trilithon** — A structure consisting of two large vertical stones (called "posts") supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top ("lintel"); **Matronae** — Matrons; **Thirteenth Year of Shōwa** — The year 1943 C.E. in the Gregorian calendar; **Omiai** — A formally-arranged meeting between prospective marriage partners.

8) The badge design of the **Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry** (**RCCAC**) noted here is further elaborated on my special collection of notes on the Air Cavalry units, _The Air Cavalry Regiments of Canada_, which can be found at the FictionPress website under my writer's name.

9) My theory concerning the **Game** and its eventual outcome — as shown in the original _Highlander_ movie — as postulated by Dean Raeburn here is based on this: Immortals, being foundlings, are literally born of the life-energy of the Earth itself. As long as life exists on Earth, there will be Immortals; their creation normally comes about when a barren mother wishes for a child so strongly that the living spirit of Earth — "Mother Earth" in other words — responded with such. Hence, there can be no "Gathering"…and ultimately, no Prize.

10) The story behind **Meagan Schwartz** here is inspired by the _Harry Potter_/_Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ crossover short story _A Fate Worse than Death_, written by **Clell Harmon** (pen-name "Clell65619") and marked as one of my favourites at this website.

11) _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Angel_ character and situation notes:

**Wolfram and Hart, Attorneys at Law** first appeared in the first _Angel_ episode, "City Of."

The demons of the _Buffy_ universe — known by the term **Old Ones** — were first mentioned in the _BTVS_ first season episode "The Harvest."

The **Seed of Wonder** — said to be the source-point of all life and magic in the _Buffy_ universe — was first mentioned in the 2008 graphic novel story "Anywhere But Here," the tenth issue of the _Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight_ series published by Dark Horse Comics.

12) Members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black mentioned here — **Marius Black**, his sister **Cassiopeia Black** (1915-92) and their uncle **Sirius Black** (1889-1943) — were first mentioned in the film version of _Order of the Phoenix_; their names appeared on the Black Family tapestry located at 12 Grimmauld Place. Details such as Marius Black's birth and death dates and the elder Sirius Black's middle name are my invention.

As an aside, when **Sirius Orion Black** declared that Meagan Schwartz and her descendants would have a place of **cognatic primogeniture** — also known as "equal primogeniture" — after Harry Potter and his descendants in the second flashback scene means that if something happened to Harry, Meagan would become the next Marchioness of Grimmauld. This effectively placed Meagan and her descendants AHEAD in order of precedence over people such as Nymphadora Tonks or Draco Malfoy…which ultimately means that Sirius totally flipped around the standard laws of primogeniture when it came to whomever would succeed him as head of the House of Black.

As one notes after looking at the family tree for Sirius' clan, next to inherit after the direct patriarchal line leading to Sirius would logically be the descendants of his maternal great-grandfather (and paternal great-granduncle) **Cygnus Black** (1889-1943). Cygnus' younger grandson and namesake, **Cygnus Black** (1938-92), is the maternal grandfather of **Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin** (through Cygnus' second daughter, **Andromeda Tonks**), **Draco Malfoy** (through Cygnus' youngest daughter, **Narcissa Malfoy**)…and in the universe of this story, **Cassiopeia Lestrange** (through Cygnus' eldest daughter, **Bellatrix Lestrange**).

Running on those lines, under normal rules, Meagan Schwartz's place in the order of succession would actually fall in AFTER those descent from the younger Cygnus Black's father **Pollux Black** (1912-90), who was the eldest of the older Cygnus Black's children. Also, any children from Cassiopeia Black — none were noted — would have place of precedence over Marius' children, never mind his being a squib.

Also, by those very rules, falling at the very END of the line of succession from the elder Cygnus Black would be the descendants of his youngest daughter, **Dorea Black** (1920-77), who would eventually marry Charlus Potter and — in the universe of this story; this was never properly confirmed in any of the _Harry Potter_ novels — would be the great-grandmother of **Harry James Potter**, though she would never live to see him born.

A final joke from an old Marauder, indeed…!

13) Germany's only post-World War Two wand wizarding academy, the **Nibelung Academy of Magic** (_Akademie der Magie Nibelungen_), is named in tribute to the mythical hoard spoken of in both Germanic and Norse legend that the royal family of the **Burgundians** — who settled in the area of modern-day **Worms** in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in the Fifth Century C.E. — were said to possess. The actual term "Nibelung" is the name of a dwarf. This legend would later inspire Richard Wagner's famous opera cycle, _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ ("The Ring of the Nibelung"), published in 1848-74. The third act of the second opera _Die Walküre_ ("The Valkyrie") — titled _Walkürenritt_ ("Ride of the Valkyries") — would become quite popular beyond Germany; it would appear in as far-flung performances as the famous 1957 Bugs Bunny cartoon _What's Opera, Doc?_ and the 1979 war epic _Apocalypse Now_.

14) Unlike the more commonly known mythologies of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Vikings, the myths of the **Celts** that once dominated Europe before the time of Christ are shrouded in mystery. **Taranis** is the god of thunder and the Celtic equivalent to Jupiter/Zeus. **Esus** is believed to be a war god and the rough equivalent to Mars/Ares. And **Toutatis** — made famous by being the divine subject of oaths uttered by Gaulish characters in the famous _Astérix_ graphic novel series published by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo from 1959 onward — is believed to be a local tribal deity. However, Taranis, Esus and Toutatis became famous because they attracted the attention of the Roman poet **Marcus Annaeus Lucanus** AKA **Lucan** (39-65 C.E.). Atop that, the actual names of the **Matronae** (also called the **Matres** ["Mothers"]), who appeared in stonework dating from the First to the Fifth Centuries C.E. — to say anything of their spiritual realm of influence — have not been confirmed to this day…though triumvirate goddesses have appeared many times throughout the myths of Europe.

15) The actual location of **Cokeworth** — where the neighbourhood of **Spinner's End** is located; this is the place where **Severus Snape**, **Lily Potter** and **Petunia Dursley** spent their childhood — was not given in the _Harry Potter_ novels. However, as Cokeworth was described as an industrial town on hard times — and Spinner's End clearly indicated something to do with the milling industry — I placed the town on the **River Derwent** close to the Derbyshire county town of **Matlock**. Located in the village of **Matlock Bath** a kilometre south of Matlock itself is **Sir Richard Arkwright's Masson Mill**, a water-powered cotton spinning mill built in 1783 during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. I felt it quite befitting to draw the comparison.

As an aside, the personal faith of the **Morrígan** as expressed by Severus and his late mother **Eileen Snape (****_née_**** Prince)** — inspired, of course, by _Quote the Raven, Nevermore_ — arose from the fact that Eileen is part-Irish. She is related to those natives of Ulster who migrated into Scotland during the existence of **Dál Riata** during the Sixth and Seventh Centuries C.E. With that migration came the transmission of tales such as the _Táin Bó Cúailnge_ ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"), in which the Morrígan was a prominent character. The _Táin_ had an impact on _Phoenix From the Ashes_ via **Alexandra Lucy "Sandi" McLugh**, the current reincarnation of the hero of that particular tale, **Sétanta mac Súaltam** AKA **Cú Chulainn**. Sandi first appeared in Part 21 of _PFtA_.

16) The actual birth year of **Moaning Myrtle** AKA **Myrtle Ursula O'Neil** (middle and family name are my creation) was never given in the _Harry Potter_ novels. The assumption that she was fourteen years old as noted in the Harry Potter Wikia came from the woman who portrayed her in the movies, **Shirley Henderson** (born 1965), who stated in an interview with _Newsday_ in 2004 — in response to the announcement that Myrtle would appear in the _Goblet of Fire_ movie — that she was playing a girl that age even if she was a ghost. I base Myrtle's age in this story from what I portrayed her as in _Harry Potter and the Icemaidens_, when she saved Tom Riddle from the wrath of banshees in the **Yule Scream of 1938**.


	11. The Maidens Save the Day, Again!

Hogwarts, the Hospital Wing, a half-hour after mid-afternoon…

"Young lady, have you any CONCEPT of what you just did here?!"

The would-be warrior-priestess blinked before she turned to gaze tranquilly on a huffing potions master. "And what, pray tell, did I do, Wise Master Severus?"

Severus Snape sputtered in shock before he waved to the sleeping woman on what was nicknamed "Harry's Place," the bed in which the Man-Who-Won was always placed whenever he required the services of the school's mediwitch. "What did you DO?! You stupid girl! You don't go around and RESURRECT THE DEAD, not even if she WAS a…!"

"She is not the original Myrtle O'Neil, Master Severus."

Severus gaped, his jaw opening and closing for a moment. "What?" he finally eeped.

"The magic of the _nŏksbae_ and the timeless power of the _tre'cha_ both came into play here," Inada Mizuho stated as she gazed away from the window she was looking out from to stare at the young potions master, ignoring the smirks from Poppy Pomfrey as well as Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick. One thing about the Friend of Dragons that had ALWAYS been commented on was her diamond-hard sense of self-assurance; that was more than guaranteed to raise Severus' hackles since he had that same level of self-assurance when it came to many things…_and_ the experience to back it up. "That which should have passed out of the Shadowlands through the Veil of the Te'a when the Lady Myrtle died in 1943 has done so, freeing her soul to embrace the Frašōkərəti after years of being trapped in that dreary bathroom thanks to Wise Master Salazar's pet. But thanks to Tom Riddle experimenting with what was required to transform things into _nŏksbae_ as part of his horcrux research, Myrtle's spirit was infused with the power of the _nŏksbae_ as her death allowed him to perform his first soul-split. Thus, she was able to allow her soul to be replicated so that her spiritual 'child' could live her own life…which is no different than what someone like myself will do at the time of final death to pass knowledge to a worthy heir via _tre'cha_. As you know, after that last fragment of Lord Voldemort's soul morphed into Thérèse Peverell, she became her own being thanks to the _nŏksbae_ rituals her 'father' used to ensure his immortality. Thus it had to happen here, especially with a Life Debt bond also involved."

Severus blinked before he sighed. He knew all about Life Debts; what he had owed James Potter thanks to that stupid incident at the Shrieking Shack in their fifth year as provoked by Sirius Black had haunted him for years, forcing him into an emotional tug-of-war when it came to James' son — who was also the son of his oldest and dearest friend — until they finally reconciled in Harry's sixth year. Shaking his head, he gazed on Minerva. "And this was all because of the Yule Scream of 1938?"

"I told you that already, Severus. Why won't you believe me?"

He gazed on Myrtle, who was slowly sitting up in her bed. She was now dressed in a pair of jeans, a button blouse and a cardigan sweater; that had been created for her by Mizuho thanks to the Staff of Gihan. "I just find it hard to believe, Myrtle, that there was a Life Debt situation between you and Tom when he killed the other you." Back to Minerva. "Did you confirm this through Headmaster Dippet's portrait?"

"Aye, I did," she answered. "He remembered seeing Myrtle keep Tom protected from the banshees while he was busy trying to banish them from the castle. She even used a very good Summoning Charm to draw a table in the path of one of their screams to keep Tom safe. I'd say that's a valid reason for a Life Debt to have existed between them."

"Given that Tom killed Myrtle when he let that basilisk loose in '43, that might have contributed a lot to his insanity. Not that splitting his soul apart in that very same incident was bad enough for the foolish boy," Poppy added as she finished with the diagnostic spells. "Well, you seem quite healthy, Myrtle. I still would like to get you to Rose to have her give you a detailed look-over since I'm still not very familiar with Avalonian biology and how it would properly mesh with your 'mother's' magic."

"Indeed it would be best, Lady Healer Poppy, to have Lady Myrtle taken to Grimmauld Place," Mizuho stated. "While I suspect a _marei'cha_ bond may come out of her meeting the Lady Thérèse, it would — as you just noted — also give Lord Harry's fiery sister a chance to ensure all is well with our newly-woken sister."

"Playing _nakōdo_, are we?" Poppy teased.

"And I shouldn't try?"

Laughter filled the room from all save an annoyed Severus and a blushing Myrtle…before one of the school's many ghosts drifted in. "Minerva!" Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington — "Nearly-Headless Nick" as he was better known — called out. "You must come see this! A mighty host has now appeared on the grounds by the quidditch pitch!"

"Calm yourself, Master Nicholas," Mizuho stated, which made the Gryffindor house ghost jerk before he gazed wide-eyed at this charming follower of the great sage Zaraϑuštra Spitāma who saved one of Nick's spiritual charges from a fatal accident back in March. "Methinks that host is one of the battalions of the Black Maidens, obeying the command of their liege lady to protect both bright Hogwarts and tranquil Hogsmeade from the hordes of the undead who now flock to merry old Albion to steal magic."

The ghost blinked before a delighted grin crossed his face. "You mean Jessica Gibbon and her friends, my good lady?!" he exclaimed before looking off to his left. "Helena! Brother Simon! Lord Ælfweard! Did you hear this?! Look who's come to visit us!"

An amused chuckle answered as a corpulent ghost drifted up through the floor to join his friend, wearing the simple robes of a member of the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel from the early Middle Ages. "I know already, Sir Nicholas," Simon Ayles — the "Fat Friar" as he was commonly known — stated with a smile. "Elizabeth and Jessica are already coming this way, as is young Enid! I don't recognize the lady in charge of that host, though. They're all dressed in those modern uniforms soldiers wear when they're out performing their duties. I assume she must be a friend…"

"Indeed she is, Brother Simon!"

People turned…then Poppy clapped her hands in delight as Elizabeth Gibbon marched smartly into the room, arm-in-metaphysical arm with the spirit of Helena Ravenclaw. The leader of the Schwarze Mädchen was, as the Friar noted, once more in her combat uniform. Behind them was Elizabeth's twin sister Jessica as well as Enid Geraint and a tomboyish woman with short, styled dark brown hair and bright blue eyes; they were also dressed in combat uniforms. On seeing the woman with the triband flag of Austria on her shoulders and the golden arrowhead-shaped frame with two side-by-side six-point star-like insignia over a solid gold mountain-shaped base, Severus realized this woman was the commander of the First Battalion of the Black Maidens, _Oberstleutnante_ Anna Wittmann. A native of Ramsau west-southwest of Vienna, she was second in her year at the Babenberg Academy of Sorcery for the Mistresses Class of 1937. A wicked dueller who had initially supported the _Anschluss_ between the Third Reich and her homeland a year after she graduated from school, Anna was one of many Schwarze Mädchen who had won the right to wear the "tin necktie" on her uniform; she ended World War Two with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and the Pour le Mérite Magique.

"Friar Simon!"

That was a grinning Enid, who came over to bow politely to the Friar. A native of the Welsh city of Caernarfon on the Menai Straits separating the mainland from the Isle of Anglesey, she was a Hufflepuff alumnus from the NEWT class of 1934 and one of the older of the Black Maidens. She was also a veteran of the Spanish Civil War; atop winning the first class Iron Cross, she was also a knight of the Order of Asturias as well as having been awarded a gamut of Spanish awards for her participation in that conflict on the side of Francisco Franco's Falange movement. Enid had also been part of the raid led by Margareta Hecht on the Ministry of Magic in 1941; it was she who discovered what happened to the parents of the British Black Maidens…which unleashed a platoon of Grindelwald's deadly coven of combat hit-witches on a search-and-destroy mission that scoured Great Britain from Land's End to John o' Groats that ultimately saw over three hundred people killed off, including then-Minister for Magic Benedict Fenwick. To her brother and sister Hufflepuffs, the pretty green-eyed Welshwoman with the curly rusty red-brown hair normally styled in a thick and bushy ponytail at the back of her head to flow past her shoulders was something of a dark heroine; damned because of her willingness to fight for Gellert Grindelwald…but admired for honouring her old house's virtues of loyalty to family and friends no matter what stood in her way.

"Hello, Enid!" the Friar said as he allowed Enid to "embrace" him. "My heavens! You look like you did when you graduated from school!" He then smiled as she allowed him to "grasp" her hands. "I've prayed for you and the others constantly since I heard the awful news about what happened at Nurmengard. I knew you would never do evil, Enid! None of you could do such things! Yes, it was horrible you felt so persecuted…but you won the war, my dear! You all showed the way the Founders felt those blessed by God with the power of magic should behave, both amongst themselves and with those not so blessed. Be proud of yourself, my dear. Your heavenly reward will come."

"Indeed Friar Simon speaks the truth, Dame Enid," the Grey Lady added before she gazed on Elizabeth. "You as well, Lady Elizabeth. Even if it took a while for those native to this land to fully understand what you fought for, you won the war."

"And a spectacular victory it was, my dear," Nearly-Headless Nick stated with an approving nod. "Right from the day he returned back from trying to force the Lady Tsukiko to admit to things she never did, Lord Albus accepted that."

Elizabeth blinked before she smiled. "Well, better late than never," she admitted before slipping her arm away from the Grey Lady as she gazed on Minerva. "On behalf of my brigade, Headmistress McGonagall, I apologize to you for intruding upon the peace and tranquillity of this old castle," she said with a polite bow. "However, as the Queen has so commanded in Her Royal Warrant, my brigade is now tasked to destroy those of the undead who now threaten us all, magical and normal alike. My friend's battalion now on the grounds will be directly responsible for the safety of all living within Scotland, including Hogwarts and Hogsmeade." She waved Anna up, the latter coming to attention and clicking her heels as she bowed her head to the headmistress.

"You people just came straight out of cryogenic suspension, Brigadier," Filius noted. "Are you sure you're ready to take to the field so quickly?"

"Fret not about whatever stiffness their bodies may demonstrate after sixty-five years in that cave, Wise Master Filius," Mizuho spoke up, making the Schwarze Mädchen stare in confusion at her. "Given the arrogance of their foes, I would suspect the Wise Mistress Elizabeth and her sisters could deal with them even if they were all drunk."

Elizabeth's jaw dropped in shocked recognition. "You…!"

The would-be warrior-priestess sighed as she raised her hand to stay the other woman. "Say nothing towards what you're now inclined to say, sister," she bade as she gazed upon the leader of the Black Maidens. "Much that I understand the need to acknowledge Life Debts, I shall not and will not force you into a situation which might inadvertently hurt you, especially now."

"It still must be acknowledged, Fire Maiden," the Friar warned.

Mizuho blinked before she sighed. "Aye, my brother in faith, 'tis true," she said, nodding in acknowledgement. "Let us wait until Sewell and his lot are all dust and those who would support them forced to submit before speaking of this further, Lady Elizabeth. Hopefully by then, the veil that forces my silence — even of my name! — to so many can be lifted and you will understand where and when I come from."

"We'll hold you to it, _meine Frau_," Anna advised.

"Nick!"

Nearly-Headless Nick yelped. "What?!" he gasped as he stared wide-eyed at Jessica.

The Gryffindor alumnus pointed at him. "Your head's STILL stuck on your neck!"

"Jessica…!" Nick whined. He HATED it whenever Jessica teased him about that!

"**_JESSICA CAROLINE GIBBON!_**" Elizabeth shrilled out. "_**STOP TEASING THE POOR MAN!**_"

"**_OI!_**" Jessica shrilled back; she HATED it when Elizabeth acted like their late mother.

"Whatever is the matter?" Mizuho asked.

_**When his corporeal life was terminated in the First Year of Meiō, Controller, Nicholas John de Mimsy-Porpington did not have his head properly severed from his neck**_, the Staff helpfully reported. _**He has lamented the fact since that time, as you will recall what we were told about the one disembodied spirit who has tried for 518 years to join the group led by Patrick Stephen Delaney-Podmore we encountered 67.4 days ago.**_

"Ah! So Lord Nicholas wishes to join the Headless Hunt?"

**_That is correct._**

"You encountered the _**Headless Hunt**_?!" Severus exclaimed as Nick gaped at her.

"But of course, Master Severus," Mizuho stated. "Two months and a week ago, I noted that the members of Lord Patrick's noble troupe of ghostly riders were entertaining the Young Mistress Victoria Delaney, a Meridiana student not even ten years of age who was visiting her parents at their home on the shores of the beautiful River Trent. Some drunken dolt came onto the scene, then began to accuse her of dealing in dark magics! His ignorance about such things was utterly disgusting to behold; those such as Lord Patrick and his friends — to say anything of the noble spirits who reside within this charming castle — mean no harm to the living!" As the ghosts present all preened on hearing that complement from her, she added, "And the Lady Victoria's home was properly warded and shielded from normal view! What, I dare ask you all, was the problem?!"

"What did you do?" Jessica demanded.

"On sensing they did NOT approve of their young host being so abused, Noble Mistress Jessica, I allowed my friend here to permit Lord Patrick and his friends to possess the twit and make HIM experience his worst fears!" Mizuho declared as she waved to the Staff. "He apparated to get clear, but left parts of himself behind."

Severus laughed as Minerva, Poppy and Myrtle giggled, Filius guffawed and the Schwarze Mädchen smirked. "He splinched himself?!" the potions master asked.

"Quite spectacularly so. And deservedly so, I add, especially given how distraught the Lady Victoria was at being so hurt by the 'mean man.' So I called upon some friends I made who inhabit the Cave of Annwn to come to give her cheer." Mizuho then smirked. "Not to mention feast on the fool's body parts so he would know not to do it again."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"You made friends…with the bloody _**Wild Hunt**_?!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

The would-be warrior-priestess blinked. "Shouldn't I have, Lady Elizabeth?" She then sighed. "In the meantime, an omiai beckons me back to old London before I rejoin my friends. Healer Poppy, are you satisfied with the Lady Myrtle's good health?"

Poppy blinked before shaking her head. "Um…I've no problems."

"Wonderful! Oh, Lord Nicholas, could you lower your arms for a moment?"

Nick — who had moved to make a warding sign with his hands on hearing that this strange lady from the Land of the Wa had dealt with the _**Wild Hunt**_ of all things — blinked, though his arms did do as she had requested. "Whatever is the matter, my dear?"

The Staff's crystal then flared as a bolt of energy lashed out…

_SHUUUP!_

…severing that last half-inch of Nick's flesh which kept his head still tied to the rest of his body, sending said head tumbling off to one corner of the Hospital Wing. "Five hundred and eighteen years late, but done," Mizuho stated as she lowered the Staff while everyone else, living and non-living, gaped in shock at her. "Methinks the good Lord Patrick will be more kind to you when next you request the chance to join his troupe. If he still is hesitant, send a missive to Lady Victoria Delaney — she is actually a descendant of Lord Patrick, if you wish to know — either at Meridiana or at Swain's Forks near Gainsborough. Come, Lady Myrtle! The Lady Thérèse awaits us!"

Myrtle nodded as she ran over to slip her arm around Mizuho's, then both vanished from Hogwarts. Stunned silence then fell…before delighted laughter escaped the now-FULLY decapitated head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. "Five hundred years…five hundred years…!" he moaned again and again, his eyes glistening with tears.

Both the Fat Friar and the Grey Lady beamed at their friend's joy. "A true Hufflepuff, that girl!" the former declared. "A truer Hufflepuff I've NEVER seen!"

"Nay, Brother Simon!" the Bloody Baron declared as he slipped into the room. "A child from the Land of the Wa that makes an alliance with the _**Wild Hunt**_?! If he was still alive, my master would curse anyone who would think her as not worthy of Slytherin!"

"In that, I now find myself agreeing with you, Lord Ælfweard," Severus dryly noted.

"'Wild Hunt?'" a confused Anna asked.

"_Wildes Heer_," Elizabeth translated.

The Austrian combat hit-witch's eyes widened. "Oh…!"

* * *

Diagon Alley, Rosa Lee Teabag, two hours before supper…

"Oh — my — God!"

For Hermione Granger, it was a most unique moment.

Either this was a sign from the Heavens that final victory would soon come…

…or it was a simple sign that the Fates had weird senses of humour.

No matter what…

"You're shocked."

The normal-born adviser to the DMLE blinked before she turned away from the private letter that had just been delivered to her from Blaise Zabini to gaze on the reporter seated nearby, calmly sipping her tea. "Wouldn't you be, Rita?" she wondered.

Rita Skeeter — who had stayed with Callie Norman at Rosa Lee Teabag after Linn Heinrich headed to Gringotts to check on her bank account and do the inheritance blood test; both were helping watch over a still-dazed Janina Neumann and a barely-conscious Elaine Mithwold — smirked. Having joined them were a couple of combat witches from 23 Jäger Company, one of the seven primary fighting sub-units of the Second Battalion; that part of the Black Maidens — now based out of Romney Marsh — would patrol the magical areas of London, the East Midlands, the East of England and the South East. Both women — _Ylikersantti_ Marjatta Laine and _Alikersantti_ Hannele Mäkinen — were alumni of the Aarnivalkea School of Magic in Finland, located in the northern reaches of Lapland close to the Norse border. That school, Hermione knew, was often nicknamed the "poor wizard's Durmstrang" due to it accepting any student regardless of blood ancestry…even if, in all respects, Aarnivalkea had been light-years ahead of its near-neighbour when it came to magical research and development ever since it was founded at the orders of King Eric XIV of Sweden — which then controlled Finland — in 1562.

Despite the heavier-than-average number of normal-born magicals living in their homeland at the time in comparison to other European nations, Marjatta and Hannele gladly joined 224 other Finnish witches in flocking to Gellert Grindelwald's banner; in interviews conducted during the war, both happily admitted that they had put on the uniforms of the Schwarze Mädchen in hopes of helping keep their homelands free of both the red hordes of Soviet Russia AND the staleblood idiots running things in Norway. Because of that, the Finnish contingent had been at the head of the charge when the Magische Reichsarmee targeted their leader's alma mater in the Battle of Durmstrang in 1942, nearly wiping the place off the map. After the war ended, it took that school a _**decade**_ to recover…even if the leaders of post-war Durmstrang stubbornly kept to their "no muggleborns" policy that had ruled the school since its founding in 1397.

That, Hermione knew, ultimately guaranteed that enrolment at Durmstrang would drop drastically as normal-raised half-bloods and purebloods elected to go to places like Aarnivalkea and its counterparts in Denmark and Sweden, the Læsø Søfort School of Magecraft on the island of Læsø in the Kattegat off the Jutland coast and the Tallemaja School of Magical Arts on the shores of Torrön Lake in Jämtland near the Norse border. Thanks to the fierce competition from the three "lesser" Scandinavian schools and how the overall drop in students came to threaten the very future of Durmstrang itself, alumni such as Igor Karkaroff (Masters Class of 1969) — a descendant of Russian nobility whose ancestors fled to Finland in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917 — felt they had ultimately no choice but to join Voldemort's ranks in hopes of expanding the British-centric First Purification War into a Europe-wide counter-revolution that would have expunged the changes the Americans and Soviets had unleashed on the Continent. Such, people like Karkaroff hoped, would see things restored to the "proper" way they were before Grindelwald's rise in the 1930s…even in the face of the ominous threat of Svetlána Múromeca — then being held in "strategic reserve" at Russia's version of Azkaban, the infamous Spemát — being recalled to duty to raise a magical army to destroy the "feudal imperialist bourgeoisie counter-revolutionaries" in Britain then threatening the future of the "equal societies" which had arisen from the ashes of Grindelwald's War thanks to the sacrifices of the warriors of the Moscow Magical Front of the Red Army and the Magical Corps of the United States Army!

Unfortunately, Karkaroff's efforts to foster revolution in Scandinavia — even with the threat of the Bloody She-bear of Siberia lurking like some dark demoness beyond the Paatsjoki and Grense Jakobselv Rivers — did nothing more than put Durmstrang under direct threat of closure from King Olav V of Norway, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and President Urho Kekkonen of Finland in 1977. All four national leaders were the spiritual inheritors of the throne of the Kalmar Union which first bound most of Scandinavia together under one crown the same year Durmstrang was founded; because of that, they had the power bequeathed on them ultimately by Queen Margrete I to force permanent changes on the school if they so chose…though like many of their counterparts elsewhere on Earth when it came to dealing with self-governing magical enclaves, a "hands off" policy was normally pursued save for times of emergency. With _that_ threat hanging like the Sword of Damocles over Durmstrang's future, Karkaroff and his friends were effectively cut off and left to the mercy of the British…even if the Russian-Finn nobleman's grandson would escape a permanent stay at Azkaban and rise to the position of Highmaster at his alma mater in 1989.

Any attempts at trying to maintain the pureblood traditionalist agenda there would fail thanks to Igor's murder in the summer of 1996; once such an act was confirmed by spies inserted in Durmstrang to have be provoked by Voldemort, it was the last straw for the leaders in Scandinavia. The school's charter was revamped in the Treaty of Oslo that was signed on New Year's Day in 1997. In that agreement, all pureblood traditional influences on the curriculum were eliminated, the teaching of the Dark Arts was more strictly regulated and the legal bonds with the rulers of Sweden, Denmark and Finland eliminated, making Durmstrang Norway's national magical academy. Those changes — as Hermione later learned from her friend and Harry Potter's former Triwizard Tournament opponent, Victor Krum; these days, the Bulgarian quidditch hero was Deputy Highmaster of Durmstrang — were loudly welcomed by the current generation of students then in attendance…despite howls of protest from many alumni who were afraid that the "mudbloods" would destroy their beloved alma mater. Such outrage was swiftly silenced when news of Death Eater Season spread across the North Sea from Britain that summer. To ensure they stayed silent, a Magical Royal Resolution was issued by King Harald V, warning that if any protests concerning the future of Durmstrang turned to open revolt, His Majesty would have no choice but to request a favour of his "beloved friend" Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom…concerning the loaning of a set of _**keys**_ for the use of the Norwegian authorities until the magical prison on Vesle Tavleøya in the Svalbard archipelago was upgraded to be the equal of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren.

That shut people up _very_ quickly.

No one wanted ANOTHER version of the Maze Amongst The Rocks created anywhere in Europe!

Shaking her head as she turned her attention back to the people inside Rosa Lee Teabag, Hermione then focused on the two Finnish Black Maidens as they chatted away in literate _Suomen kieli_; unlike the Leaky Cauldron, the small teashop close to Gringotts had no universal translation spells active here, so Hermione had no idea what Marjatta and Hannele were chatting about. However, their excitement was quite understandable as they gazed on the dataPADD the senior sergeant brought with her. Noting that an image of the school crest of their alma mater was on the screen, Hermione smirked. These days, the Aarnivalkea School of Magic was seen as the leading school of technomancy in all of Europe. The drive to master that most modern form of magic had been born there in a reflection of the development of the Steel Angels in the 1920s and had become the main focus of the school's syllabus in the 1970s when the communications revolution launched by Nokia in Finland spilled over into the magical world; that saw many local wizards and witches travel to America, Canada, Japan and South Korea to further study the art before they began offering mastery classes in technomancy in 1985.

She then perked on hearing Rita sigh. "Politics only concern me when it comes to writing a good story," the reporter finally answered. "It's guaranteeing my future income, Hermione. As to how this'll affect what you and Harry have in mind…"

Hermione nodded before she sipped her own tea. "Why do you still doubt?"

The older woman blinked before she shrugged. "I've always doubted. It's one of the lessons you would have learned had you been sorted into Ravenclaw. Question everything around you." She then smirked. "I've always been an inquisitive person. If there are mysteries out there, they need to be exposed to the light of day." A shrug rolled her shoulders. "Deep down, I loathe being forced to write stuff I don't have proof about. I don't feel I'm doing my job even if the common wizard or witch in this country eats it up like it was fact. That's why I had to become an animagus. It gave me better chances to get the facts." She then canted her head. "Why?" she then asked.

Hermione smirked before she looked over. "Marja? Hanne? Can I interrupt you two for a moment?" she calmly asked, making the Finnish hit-witches look at her.

"What is it, Hermione?" Marjatta asked in accented English.

The normal-born from West Sussex smiled. "Rita, let me propose a new book title for you," she stated, which made Rita blink. "_The Black Maidens: Light in Darkness_. And I'll prove to you why." She then gazed on Rita's current bodyguard. "Why did you join Master Gellert, Callie? Even if you didn't have good job prospects here at the time you graduated from Hogwarts, you could have migrated to America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. None of the magicals in those countries have ever allowed a pureblood aristocracy to rise. Why go across to Germany, especially with the Nazis in power?"

The native of Aylesbury nodded. "That's a fair question," she said before sighing, then she nodded as Rita pulled out her Quick-Quotes Quill. After making it accurately record what was to be said instead of being creative in its composition — as Rita had been often forced to do over the years when she didn't have all the facts — the reporter nodded. "I began hearing stories about Master Gellert while I was still in Hogwarts," Callie began. "He'd been the Reich Minister of Magic since 1930. And unlike other magical ministries in Europe, he'd been the catalyst for a lot of changes even before Mister Hitler was elected Chancellor in 1933. He revamped the Zauberrat into what eventually became the Magisches Konzil, with elected deputies that was modelled on the normal Reichsrat, divided by equality of the old imperial states — later the Reichsgaue after they were formed in 1934 — in lieu of landed gentry like the Wizengamot. In effect, Master Gellert — even if he was a pureblood himself from a cadet branch of a noble line — was saying that the stupid 'purebloods first' policies that had ruled magical societies for centuries was obsolete and had to be changed."

"That was when he started openly preaching his 'Greater Good' message," Rita noted.

"Yes. When he began preaching about bringing a 'greater good' for all of humanity in Germany, he explained that he was inspired by tours he made of places like America in the 1920s," Callie said with a nod. "There, magical innovation and spell development fired ahead at full speed, unlike what was happening in Europe. People were encouraged to invent new things and question the old dogmas. People — regardless if they were magically-raised or normally-raised — were encouraged to participate in government, to feel that they were doing something to contribute to the direction their society was taking. And he felt it was right for Germany to have something similar. I found that quite refreshing even if I didn't speak the language. So — since I'd been turned down four times after I got out of Hogwarts to pursue a mastery in herbology — I felt I had no choice but to go across the North Sea to Germany to seek a career. That's when I met up with Enid Geraint and was persuaded to join the Schwarze Mädchen."

"When was the _Führerprinzip_ oath forced on you all?" Rita wondered.

"After Kristallnacht happened in early November of 1938," Callie stated. "By then, Mister Hitler was moving to prepare for general war and knew they needed help on the magical side…especially when it came to potential interference from normal-borns in the Slavic nations and among the Jews and Gypsies in those territories they were going to conquer. At the same time, Master Gellert was openly advocating the final abolition of the Statute of Secrecy since he felt it was utterly ridiculous to maintain such an 'obsolete' treaty in the face of the Steel Angels' existence…even if the Steel Angels themselves had disappeared over a year earlier. Since most members of the ICW thought he was as mad as a March hare for proposing something like that, they moved to isolate Germany from the rest of the world. By then, it was pretty much too late: Master Gellert had formalized his alliance with Tsukiko-sensei and the general plan for the launching of the campaign to destroy the ICW had been agreed on. When he found out what Master Gellert wanted to do, Mister Hitler invited him to the Berghof, his mountain cabin in Bavaria, to discuss what they were going to do. From what Master Gellert told us after the oath was lifted and we could think on our own, Mister Hitler was amazed by the sheer audacity of what Master Gellert had in mind; he later adopted it with the policies governing the deployment of the Übermenschen overseas."

"They just didn't count on the War Hawks," Hermione commented.

"Yes."

Rita turned to the two Finnish members of the Black Maidens. "What of you two?"

"Well, in the case of all of us from Finland, our primary motivation was the threat from the Soviets. The 'stalebloods' then in power in Norway and elsewhere were also a concern to many of us in the country, but the communists were the true devils in our eyes," Marjatta answered. "After our country became independent in 1919, we moved to establish a nominally democratic government in reflection of what was happening in normal society at the time. There would be a Maaginenministeriö and a separate legislature, but it would have elected representatives and be an equivalent to the normal Eduskunta. However, you have to remember what was happening just across the border in Russia at the time. Many Russian magicals who wanted nothing to with Lénin and his lot were getting out of the country in droves before the Magical Red Guards could shut the borders down and keep them trapped in. A lot came to Finland."

"Igor Karkaroff's relatives were amongst them," Hermione said.

Rita nodded. "So we were literally on the front lines against the godless hordes of Communism, both normally and magically," Hannele added. "Yes, Lénin allowed Finland to become independent, but that was obviously in anticipation of the Bolshevik Revolution being brought across the border; there was no doubt in many of our parents' minds that Finland would have been absorbed into the Soviet Union once there was a communist regime in charge of things in Helsinki. Fortunately for us, Lénin died and Stálin — once he secured his power base — concentrated on making the industrial improvements in the Soviet Union to bring it fully into the Twentieth Century. On the magical side, Lénin — and especially Stálin after him thanks to Svetlána Múromeca and her friends — was launching all sorts of purges and mass collectivization to ensure no potential challenge to the Bolsheviks could come from that quarter, especially since the Reds murdered off the Romanovs in Ekaterinburg in 1918; that upset a lot of Russian magical purebloods even if the common folk supported any change which would improve their lot."

"By the time we were going through Aarnivalkea, the Soviets were making noises about conquering Finland like they would do eastern Poland in 1939 and the Baltic states the next year," Marjatta continued. "We didn't want that, so the people of the land — on both sides of the secrecy divide — supported making an alliance with Germany. And while Field Marshal Mannerheim didn't care to do that, we felt we had no choice. Master Gellert didn't care for what Stálin was doing and a lot of Russians were flooding the ranks of the Magische Reichsarmee, especially ethnic Germans from the Baltics, the Vólga River valley, the Black Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus and the Ukraine. A call for volunteers was spread out over Finland. Hanne and I answered."

"You'll find that a lot of the non-German and non-Austrian volunteers felt the same way," Hannele said with a smirk. "Especially the Spanish volunteers."

The reporter nodded. "What do you see as your mission now?"

"Simple," Marjatta declared. "Your Queen has requested our assistance in preserving the magical peace in the land and protecting Her Subjects by stopping the vampires and their supporters here from doing what they're doing. Once that's done, we will then move on with our lives. We, at least, have relatives back home we could reconnect with once we get a straight story about our absence for sixty-five years figured out."

"Callie and her friends from here don't," Hannele added…

…just as the door to the teashop opened to reveal a wide-eyed Linn Heinrich. Gazing at the interrogation specialist, Hermione moaned. "You too?!"

"_Ja_!" the native of Northeim declared as she sat down. Immediately, Rosa Lee — a native of Shropshire who had quietly tended her small teashop for over three decades after graduating from Hogwarts, yet another normal witch striving to make a life for herself in an uncertain world — came over with a cup of tea. "_Danke_!" Linn said with a nod to their host before sipping the tea; she took it straight. "_Mein Gott_…!"

"What?" Callie demanded.

"_Fürstin_ of Swinford," Linn declared.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then…

"Oh — my — God!"

Rita gazed on Hermione. "What?"

A wry chuckle escaped the normal-born from Crawley. "There's your Page One headline tonight, Rita!" she declared. "With Linn here becoming the Countess of Swinford, the Seven and Ten — for the first time since 1977 and the death of Tobias Vance thanks to Melvin Kneen — are whole and complete." As Rita gaped at her, Hermione smirked as she toasted her with her tea cup. "The Black Maidens have a quorum in the Wizengamot."

A delighted smile crossed the older woman's face…

* * *

Outside the urban part of Edinburgh, on a hill overlooking Glencorse Reservoir in Pentland Hills Regional Park (a kilometre north of Trunk Road A702 and two kilometres northwest of Penicuik), ninety minutes before supper…

"_Lieber Gott_, Elisa! If this is your new house, I want to live here!"

"At least they didn't turn this place into a damned golf course," Elizabeth breathed out as she gazed upon the beautiful home of her paternal ancestors.

Glencorse Manor — located five kilometres west of south from Craiglockhart Castle — was a square stone tower about the size of an average townhouse, possessing three floors with an attic and basement. It had been constructed in the mid-Seventeenth Century for the magical friends of the Clan Lockhart of Lee as a place to hide from potential rhabdophobes in the last decades of the Dark Times of Magic. While the Gibbon family — ennobled as the Viscounts of Craiglockhart within the Wizengamot at the personal recommendation of Archibald Douglas, then the Earl of Forfar, who had married the daughter of the man who provided the land for Glencorse Manor, Sir William Lockhart — had been more than grateful at the time for such a gift, successive generations eventually warped the story of the construction of this estate around to say that the Gibbons had seized the land back from the "muggle pretender lords" who had tried to "steal" it from them; that was the story Griphook had told the current Viscountess of Craiglockhart when he gave her a full run-down of her family assets that morning.

Footsteps in the grass announced the arrival of the commander of the pioneer company in the Third Battalion, _Majorin_ Tresa Addis. A native of Munich in Bavaria and a graduate of the Rheinfelden Academy of Magecraft in the Mistresses Class if 1937, she was — like her counterpart in the Fourth Battalion, Jade Speer — a Gringotts-trained curse-breaker and warder who had turned three years of hard training into a successful wartime career that netted her the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, the Magical Assault Badge in Gold and the Wound Badge in Silver. Aboard the _Freedom_ before everyone had gone to bed last night, she expressed hope of returning to her old employers once this madness was over with…though, as the professional soldier she was, she wouldn't allow such thoughts to distract her from her current duties. "My people are looking over the property right now, _meine Generalmajorin_," the tall, muscular Bavarian with the smoky grey eyes and the long, flowing brown hair — tied now in a French braid — reported. "It looks good. Just like _Herr_ Griphook promised you. Your staff really cared for this place."

"_Das ist gut_," Elizabeth breathed out. "Linn?!"

"_Ja_?!" Linn Heinrich called from the west end of the property.

"We have enough room here for everyone?!"

"If we can use some of the inside rooms!" the interrogator from Lower Saxony replied.

"Right!" With that, Elizabeth — with Margareta Hecht at her side — marched to the main door. Holding up her right hand — which had the ring marking her as matriarch of her clan — she pressed that on the crystal over the handle to alert the house's wards that someone had come to claim the property. Immediately, the door opened and swung clear to allow the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen entrance, the interior lights flicking on to illuminate the brightly-painted walls and richly-carpeted floors. "Nice…!"

"Hello?! Is there someone there?!"

Elizabeth blinked before she noted a picture on a wall before the entrance to the main reception room, that covered by curtains. Before she could walk over to gaze on who was under the curtains there, a faint _pop!_ allowed an elderly house elf to appear on the floor before the portrait. "Silly blood-traitors!" the small being snarled in a male-like voice. "You be quiet like poor Master and Mistress wanted of you! Shame on the House of Gibbon with your love of mudbloods and blood-traitors…!"

"_**Excuse me?!**_"

He gargled on hearing that magic-filled voice before spinning around to stare wide-eyed at the shuddering blonde woman in the strange mottled brown clothing at the door. As he focused his attention on the glowing ring on the woman's right hand, the silver-haired woman beside this stranger chuckled. "I thought you once said you'd never, in all your years, own a house elf, Elisa," she said with an amused tone in her voice.

"Oh! Is that the new head of house out there?!" that odd voice called out.

Sighing, Elizabeth walked up to the portrait, making a dismissive wave of her hand to the house elf. As he shied away from her while his magical senses nearly overloaded on feeling the sheer power emanating from this strange woman, the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen wandlessly parted the curtains…before gaping. "Oh, my Lord…!"

"Oh, my! It's like looking into a mirror!"

"Except for the strange clothes, of course!"

In a beautiful scene which appeared to Elizabeth to hark to the days of the Victorian Age, there were painted twin sisters in beautiful period clothing…who could clearly pass as slightly-older versions of the Gibbon twins. As Elizabeth took a moment to absorb the sight before her, Margareta smirked. "Your pardon, _meine Damen_, for disturbing you this wonderful day. It appears my war matriarch is a little stunned at the sight of such incomparable beauty, which — in my humble opinion — simply rivals her own." As Elizabeth sputtered and the women in the paintings tittered in embarrassed delight on hearing that complement, the brigade sergeant-major of the Black Maidens clicked her heels together, bowing her head. "Your names, please?"

"Oh, I'm Amanda Gibbon," the woman on the left declared.

"And I'm Samantha Gibbon," the woman on the right added.

Elizabeth blinked before she nodded. "You were Thaddeus' older sisters, right?"

"Yes!" both women chanted.

The new matriarch of the Gibbons of Craiglockhart sighed. "As well as Josephus'?"

The twins in the portrait bowed their heads in grief as the house elf gargled. "No one must speak of the dirty squib, Mistress! Shame he was to the noble…!"

"**_BE SILENT!_**"

The poor elf was nearly crushed by the explosion of magic that burst from Elizabeth as she glared on him like an uncaring Pallas Athena would gaze upon the battlefield of Troy. As the elf shuddered on realizing that this strange woman — who WAS his mistress now; she couldn't wear the family ring that had last been worn by Helena Gibbon if she wasn't! — was most likely a blood-traitor herself, the twins on the picture exchanged a look before they gazed on her. "Are you related to Josephus?" Amanda then asked.

"I knew him as Grandfather Joseph," Elizabeth announced. "I'm Elizabeth Gibbon."

"**_A MUDBLOOD?!_**" the elf shrieked out before he began to cry. "Oh, the shame…!"

"I'd recommend clothes right away, Elisa," Margareta cut in.

The elf gargled on hearing that dire threat. Elizabeth hummed before she reached into her jacket pocket to draw out a certain skeleton key. "No, we can't afford a fifth column to strike us when we don't expect it, Gretta. I was thinking of allowing this filthy-mouthed creature to have a little taste of the _**Hollows**_…!"

A horrified shriek escaped the elf as the Key of Gonebren grew to the size of a sword. Instantly, he moved to prostrate himself before her. "No, Mistress! Please don't give Tangy to the horrible, nasty Hollows! Tangy is a good elf! Please, Mistress…!"

"_**SILENCE!**_" Elizabeth snapped, making Tangy yelp as another wave of magic slammed into him. "The staleblood _filth_ that polluted this place for years are gone, having either fed the krakens off Land's End or had their souls shredded by the Hollows! Unless you wish to join them, you will _not_ say anything that my friends will deem offensive! If you do, you WILL be given over to my parents' spirits in **_Gonebren_** for punishment!"

As Tangy trembled in horror at the idea of facing beings that made killing wizards and witches their _raison d'être_, Samantha asked, "Why would your parents be Hollows?!"

"Because they were executed on the order of the Minister for Magic in late 1940, _Frau_ Samantha," Margareta answered. "All for the 'crime' of giving birth to two 'mudblood' daughters who had the audacity to move to Germany in the late 1930s to find better lives for themselves and help fight so others may have better lives as well. Which did not sit well to the _leicheblut schweinhunde_ who governed magicals in Britain."

The twins in the portraits exchanged looks before they gaped in awe. "You mean to say, Elizabeth…that you joined the _**Black Maidens**_?!" Amanda squealed.

"Oh, my! To be related to such a dashing rogue!" Samantha teased.

"I'm their commander," Elizabeth stated before waving to her companion. "My brigade sergeant-major — and the woman who avenged my parents' deaths in 1941, not to mention the deaths of the relatives of my coven-sisters native to Britain — Margareta Hecht."

"Honoured," Margareta stated with another click of her heels.

"Pleased to meet you!" the twins in the painting chanted together.

Tangy howled. "_**EVIL MUDBLOOD! YOU KILLED THE MASTER'S GRANDPARENTS…!**_"

"**_GONEBREN, 'C' BLOCK!_**"

…before he disappeared in a flash of light thanks to being tapped by the Key. As Elizabeth breathed out in disgust, Margareta squeezed her shoulder in support…just as footsteps heralded Linn Heinrich walking in. "What happened?!"

"She just sent the elf that kept this place nice and neat to Gonebren, Linn," Margareta answered. "He was a foul-mouthed creature who didn't care for 'mudbloods.'"

The chief interrogator nodded. "Shall we examine the inside?" she then asked.

"Do it!" Elizabeth snapped. "I want Headquarters up and running in thirty minutes! We're on a clock! Send the liaison officers out to Anna, Jess, Aimée and Diana for updates!"

"_Jawohl_!"

As Linn ran out to alert the others — and to warn people that the "Boss" was in a bad mood, not to mention why — the leader of the Black Maidens walked into the reception room to gaze on what was there, allowing the Key of Gonebren to rest on her shoulder. Beautiful furniture, bright colours, glistening crystal chandeliers, books in well-ordered shelves…save for the absence of any modern technology, this could actually be the sitting room of a normal nobleman's house. One would think that if beings as ghastly and as evil as her second cousins three times removed had lived here, this place would be as dark and dreary as some parts of Hogwarts seemed to her.

"Hypocrites!" she muttered to herself before turning as people came inside…

* * *

Solway Lookout, the Malfoy family home, suppertime…

"…Wizarding Wireless Network Six O'clock Evening News," the news presenter's voice echoed over the wireless set — a traditional unit in lieu of the more advanced versions that had come out of the Technomancy Shoppe in recent years — located at one corner of the sitting room. "Here are the headlines. An attack by daywalker vampires in Diagon Alley was rapidly put down just before lunch by the Black Maidens…"

"_**WHAT?!**_"

"Draco!" Narcissa Malfoy scolded as she gave him an annoyed look.

Watching her mother-in-law, Astoria Malfoy barely could fight down her smirk on seeing her husband turn especially pale on hearing what had just happened. Like Narcissa, the younger, raven-haired sister of Daphne Greengrass had been clued into what was going on thanks to Raven, who was now supervising quidditch practice with the Chudley Cannons at their stadium down in Devon. And while Astoria — who had got a crush on Draco during his seventh year at Hogwarts and never let go until they married shortly after her own graduation in 2000 — hoped that her husband would finally come to his senses and turn away from his current course, she was prepared for the worst. She knew Narcissa had, shortly after breakfast this morning, gone to Gringotts and — in her capacity as the matriarch of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy of Cumbria, who could act in the patriarch's stead in cases of death or permanent incapacity until Scorpius came of age — prepared the groundwork for when Draco was deposed as Marquess and Raven was forced to take his place, either as Regent Lady for Scorpius or as Marchioness.

_I wonder if this is something ALL Slytherin mothers go through_, she mused to herself. _Always trying to balance their feelings with the needs of their families…!_

"…Man-Who-Won himself, as well as friends in both the Order of the Phoenix and the Hogwarts Defence Association who were in Diagon this morning," the WWN presenter continued. "In a battle that lasted mere _minutes_ from the instant the vampires were detected by Brigadier Elizabeth Gibbon, the leader of the Black Maidens…"

"We really can't call her that anymore, Charles," the colour commentator cut in.

Laughter responded. "Yes, of course. That's the second headline this evening…and I WILL get to that, Gregory!" Charles Alda declared. As the colour commentator laughed, the presenter added, "As I was saying, Brigadier Gibbon detected the presence of the vampires — over two hundred of them — in Diagon and Knockturn, then moved to soundly defeat them, slaughtering them to the last with no fatalities in return and only SEVEN bystanders requiring emergency services at St. Mungo's. At the brigadier's side this morning was her own twin sister, Lieutenant Colonel Jessica Gibbon of the Black Maidens' Fourth Battalion…not to mention Lieutenant Colonel Aimée Sutone of the Third Battalion, Major Lila Fontaine of the Brigade Headquarters Company, Major Cara Walthari of the Fourth Battalion's Number 41 Jäger Company and Master Staff Sergeant Margareta Hecht, the Black Maiden Brigade's senior non-commissioned officer and the leader of the group's liberation mission to the Ministry of Magic in 1941 that freed the enslaved magicals of the British Empire from London's control."

"That's a surprising participant, Charles," Gregory Wolfe noted. "Master Staff Sergeant Hecht — as is well known — was the woman who also interrogated and executed Minister for Magic Benedict Fenwick in that attack…not to mention directed the hunting down of all the people who murdered the British Black Maidens' relatives."

"I personally thought she'd be a perfect Hufflepuff had she gone to Hogwarts," Charles noted. "Did they ever divide by houses at Nurmengard, Gregory?"

"Not that I personally know of. But remember, there WAS a 'Puff in that mission to the Ministry in 1941, Charles: Warrant Officer Class 2 Enid Geraint, who is the senior non-commissioned member of the Second Battalion and one of the many Black Maidens who had prior combat experience, gained in the Spanish Civil War of '36 to '39," Gregory stated with pride; he himself was a Hufflepuff alumnus, as was Charles. "She was the original British Black Maiden, graduating from Hogwarts in 1934 with ten NEWTs…but since she was a 'mudblood'…" — the colour commentator's voice dripped with scorn on saying that word — "…she couldn't get a job on this side of the North Sea, so she went to Germany and bought into that whole 'greater good' propaganda that Grindelwald was espousing at the time. Which — given how utterly clueless normal-borns were in those days when it came to magical societies — emphasizes the real tragedy behind these girls. I'm glad that _Rittmeister_ von Taserich saved them."

"Amen to that, Gregory. Anyhow, as a side story to the lead story, it appears the Queen decided it was prudent to make extra sure of it. For the first time known since Death Eater Season, the Key of Gonebren is not in the hands of Her Majesty."

Draco croaked on hearing that, making Astoria whisper a wandless spell to put a bubble of silence on him so she could listen to the news. "Indeed," Gregory said. "Brigadier Gibbon was given a Royal Warrant to flush out any daywalkers trying to cause trouble in the country by Her Majesty this morning at Buckingham Palace. At that meeting — which was attended by Harry Potter — the director of the German Federal Museum of Magic in Berlin, Transfiguration Mistress Julia Hoffman, returned the Black Maidens' belongings to Brigadier Gibbon and Master Staff Sergeant Hecht, including their wands."

"Which the brigadier and her friends DIDN'T need in Diagon today," Charles added.

Laughter echoed over the wireless. "Indeed, it was just smashing to watch them go at it. The bloody vampires didn't know what hit them!" Gregory stated, making his friend laugh. "While it's not been confirmed as of yet by either the Ministry or the Black Maidens, the handover of the Key of Gonebren was no doubt done in answer to yesterday morning's incident at Nurmengard Prison, when the mysterious Friend of Dragons — known more commonly as '_**her**_' — discovered the Black Maidens trapped in suspended animation in a cave west of the prison complex itself…then had to kill off over a hundred daywalker vampires while she teleported the Maidens to the Avalonian bioroid factory in orbit around the Moon so they could be freed after SIXTY-FIVE years in such a state."

"Let's focus on that a moment. How would those girls feel right now, Gregory?"

"I would say very disorientated…but given the Avalonians' psionic powers — which, as is well known, far outmatch any form of Legilimency or Occlumency that a Terran magical can do — they would have caught up to things real quickly. Looking outside our studio in Diagon, I can see members of the Second Battalion under command of Lieutenant Colonel Diana von Meißen — the 'Black Baroness of Brandenburg' herself who commanded the Maidens' first foray into the Soviet Union in 1941 — doing patrols. Half of them I've seen have dataPADDs — the Avalonian version of laptop computers — in hand."

"Well, we really can't call the Lady Diana a mere 'baroness' now, can we?"

Gregory laughed. "We can't avoid this one, Charles. The second story this evening is the fact that — as confirmed by Gringotts today — the Seven and Ten are effectively whole and complete for the first time in thirty-three years, since the tragic murder of Lady Vanessa Zabini's husband Lord Tobias Vance in 1977 by Death Eater Martin Kneen. Incredible as THIS will sound, the newly-confirmed Countesses of Droitwitch, Swinford, Romney and Clydeford — whose last seat holders in the Wizengamot, as noted just now, were all victims of Martin Kneen because of their tragically short marriages to Lady Vanessa — are all members in good standing of the Black Maidens themselves!"

As Draco looked almost ready to faint, Narcissa and Astoria exchanged a surprised look. "And with the Defunct Lords Act of 1957 having been done away with two weeks ago — atop the 1950 Statement of Exoneration concerning the Black Maidens issued by the ICMC in Geneva, which is binding magical law here in Britain — there is simply no legal path by which any objection to those four ladies taking those seats in the Wizengamot can be pursued as magical nationality laws in the United Kingdom do acknowledge that blood relations across international borders have the inherent right to claim British citizenship. And since these ladies — not to mention several others of their coven — had blood relations over here, they legally are British," Charles added.

"And that brings us to tonight's special guest this evening," Gregory stated. "The first commander of the Black Maiden Brigade — forced by injury to give up her command in early 1944 — and the first person who has the undisputed right to call herself the 'Destroyer of Azkaban,' Colonel Livia Dietrich of the Berlin suburb of Schöneberg. A graduate of Greifinswald from the Mistresses Class of 1936, she's a member of the Order of the Iron Cross granted the right to bear the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, a member of the Italian Military Order of Savoy at the rank of Commander AND a member of the Order Pour le Mérite Magique. She personally commanded the first strike on British soil in Grindelwald's War in the attack on Azkaban Prison in 1939. Colonel Dietrich, good evening to you. How does it feel to be in the Twenty-first Century?"

"'Horrendously shocking' as you English would most likely say it," a slightly-accented voice answered back, possessing a Prussian's clipped tones. As the two WWN reporters laughed on hearing that — that echoed by Narcissa's and Astoria's chuckles, which made Draco gape at them — Livia Dietrich added, "Before we begin this interview, if I may, I would like to personally apologize to those relatives of the Aurors that were killed in Azkaban that day in 1939 for their deaths when I led my jäger company there to destroy the Dementors and render the prison useless for the rest of the war. Much that killing people is a horrid thing, it's an undeniable fact of life when war is concerned."

"Did you hear of what Mun Aesup did in 1997?" Charles asked.

"Indeed I did. I should remind you, _Herr_ Alda, that woman is a serving officer in Her Majesty's Royal Naval Reserve holding the rank of lieutenant commander as a member of the crew of Her Majesty's Ship _President_ here in London. I consider it offensive that such an incredible woman would not be addressed properly by rank."

"I do apologize for that, Colonel," Charles stated.

"It's alright," Livia conceded. "To answer your question about what she did in 1997, I personally hold Lieutenant Commander Mun with high regard. We never considered using mesonium-based weapons during the war; that material was always under the full control of _Rittmeister_ von Taserich and was used to create new Übermenschen for use in North America and in Russia beyond the Ural Mountains. I have to confess, the commander's incredible audacity in doing something like that when she supported _Markgraf_ Potter in his efforts to destroy Voldemort and his allies in the summer of 1997 should have seen her — in my eyes — rewarded with more than just a second class Order of Merlin."

"What would you have suggested?" Gregory wondered.

"Ennoblement in the Wizengamot. That is the Queen's Prerogative, is it not?"

"Indeed, many have suggested that since that time. I personally suspect it's because she is Korean — even if her family's magical line can be traced back over four millennia to the court of King Tan'gun himself — that's blocked any support from the Wizengamot towards such an ennoblement," Charles mused. "But that's what your group ultimately fought against, isn't it? The elimination of all forms of racism."

"_Ja_, we did," Livia replied. "In our eyes, it didn't — and still doesn't — matter if you're human or not, magical or not, raised in magical society or in normal society. We are all the same in the Creator's eyes — to me, that is the Christian God I was raised to venerate — and none should be persecuted for such differences." She sighed. "That made what we were made to finally think on when _Herr_ Hitler killed himself in 1945 all the more hurtful to us. We sought to free people from slavery, both in support to Tsukiko-sensei's campaigns in Asia…and in Europe as well. And yet, by an act of cruel Fate, we will be forever connected to the most evil group of mass-murderers in recorded history. _Herr_ Hitler vowed once that the Third Reich would last a thousand years. When I was reviewing the history of the past sixty-five years, I read that someone said that it would take TEN TIMES that span of years to erase the stain of the Holocaust from Germany's heart and soul. I agree to that."

"Will your people do something concerning the remnants of the death camps in Poland?" Gregory then asked. "For years, people have warned about the sinkholes of dark magic that developed there thanks to the murders of millions — including magicals — during Grindelwald's War. The Polish Aurors have pleaded time and time again to their Magical Sejm to get the funds necessary to get exorcists and curse-breakers to places like Oświęcim — Auschwitz to you — to clear those places out. Would you help?"

"_Ja_, of course we would. I'll have to discuss this with Elisa — that's Brigadier Elizabeth Gibbon, my friend and current commander — when our current mission is over with. After all, each of our fighting battalions has a pioneer company, each with a hundred and nine trained curse-breakers, ward-breakers and magical engineers. The pioneer company of the Fourth Battalion, under command of Major Jade Speer, was here in Diagon early this afternoon to ensure all was safe after the vampires' attack."

"Speaking of Major Speer, how's she reacting to the news?" Gregory then teased.

Livia laughed. "Well, in our style, she would now be addressed as _Majorin_ Jade Xìyù _Burggräfin_ von McKinnon zu Mull. In your style, she is Major the Viscountess Jade Xìyù of the Most Noble House of McKinnon of Mull. In the simpler style the nobles — in one of their wiser decisions when they formed the Wizengamot in 1705 — in England use, acknowledging her father's family name, she is the Lady Jade Xìyù Speer of Mull."

Draco screamed — his voice blocked by Astoria's spell — as he stared wide-eyed at the wireless while Astoria and Narcissa exchanged another shocked look; _She's complementing the_ **founders of the Wizengamot**_?!_ both women silently asked each other, stunned that a woman who had gladly waged war on the purebloods of Europe would say something like THAT. "Would the Lady Jade seek residence at the old McKinnon home on the Isle of Mull?" Charles asked. "Does she still have relatives alive in Germany at this time?"

"If Jade still has relatives in Germany, that will be investigated. When she did the lineage blood test at Gringotts today, nothing magical was detected. To answer your original question about residing at McKinnon Keep, I would think her relatives who fell at the hands of the Death Eaters in Voldemort's first rebellion would welcome new blood into their family as there are no other known magical relatives still alive. And — given their membership in the Order of the Phoenix at the time of their deaths — I suspect they would probably see it as a perfect slap in the face to the pureblood supremacists in Britain to have a woman who is one-half Hàn Chinese as the new matriarch of the McKinnons. As that family has always been an accepted magical sept of the Clan MacKinnon, Jade is also entitled to wear the clan tartan with her clothes."

"There's a Highland native who was part of your coven who's also been acknowledged as the heiress of one of the empty seats in the Seven and Ten," Charles noted.

As Draco tried not to faint on hearing that, Livia answered, "_Ja_. That would be Suzanne Stuart, our chief mediwitch. In your style, she is Warrant Officer Class 2 the Countess Suzanne Darlene of the Noble and Ancient House of Kirk of Clydeford. She graduated from Hogwarts in the NEWT Class of 1935, alumnus of Hufflepuff." As both WWN reporters cheered, Livia added, "Which will make her tartan choice rather difficult!"

"How so?" Gregory asked.

"The Kirks of Clydeford were a magical sept of the Clan Erskine," the first commander of the Black Maidens stated. "Suzanne herself is descent in the father's line of the Clan Stuart of Bute. While the tartans are similar in my eyes, I know from learning of the history of Scotland that even the slightest difference in tartan pattern appearing in the wrong territory could have spelt war in the old days. Which way does she go?"

Both reporters laughed again. "Would you like to introduce the other new members of the Seven and Ten, Colonel?" Charles then bade.

"_Ja_. They are Lieutenant Colonel Diana Daniela _Freifrau_ von Meißen zum Oberspreewald as Countess of Droitwitch, Major Linn Katarina Heinrich as Countess of Swinford and Staff Sergeant Christine Louisa Schultze as Countess of Romney. Of course, Diana's noble honorific will have to now be upgraded to _Fürstin_!" As the reporters chuckled on hearing that, Livia quietly added, "Of course, _Freiherr_ Zabini has been told of this. From what I heard, he was simply overjoyed that elements of the clans of his mother's late husbands still lived. From what he told me, _Freifrau_ Zabini's grief over their deaths at the hands of that monster Kneen haunts her to this very day."

"That it does," Narcissa whispered with a sympathetic nod of her head, making Draco's head snap in her direction for a moment before he looked away.

"What of this incident in Gringotts we heard about?" Charles then asked. "The incident concerning Lady Elaine Mithwold? Can you tell us about that?"

"I can," Livia exhaled. "_Freifrau_ Mithwold was in Gringotts when the attack happened today…as was her nephew, _Herr_ Zacharias Smith. I understand both have been estranged because of the tragic murder of _Herr_ Smith's father during Voldemort's second rebellion. During the time they were kept inside Gringotts for their safety, Suzanne went into the bank to do an inheritance blood test as mandated by Elisa. When it was publicly revealed that Suzanne would now be the Countess of Clydeford, _Freifrau_ Mithwold — in a shocking act of appalling disrespect to members of the Noble Tribe, who are tasked under the Treaty of 1779 to do such tests to locate potential magical heirs of lost families — violently objected to the fact that a 'mudblood' would now be one of the Seven and Ten. That — thanks to Elisa's calling for the Vengeance of Blood before she called out the Hollows to help deal with the vampires — cost that woman her magic."

Draco dropped to the floor as he stared at the wireless as Narcissa and Astoria both gasped in stunned shock. Silence fell over the airwaves for a moment before Charles then hesitantly asked, "Forgive me, Colonel Dietrich, but I'd like to confirm what you just said: Brigadier Gibbon — by the way, ladies and gentlemen, the brigadier is now the Viscountess of Craiglockhart as she is a distant relative of two of Voldemort's Death Eaters, the late Marcus Gibbon and his sister Helena, now imprisoned in Azkaban for her crimes — called down the _**Vengeance of Blood**_ today in Diagon Alley?"

"_Ja_, _Mein Herr_, that is correct," Livia confirmed as Draco shook his head over the fact that the leader of the Black Maidens was related to two of his father's closest friends.

"Why did the Lady Elizabeth do that?" Gregory asked.

"For the same reason all virgin witches call down the Vengeance of Blood, _Herr_ Wolfe," the deputy commander of the Black Maidens coldly said. "When they are threatened by those who would do them evil. As the vampires who attacked us yesterday morning while we were trapped in the cave at Nurmengard did before _die Freundin von Drachen_ came to save us all. And yes, before you ask, we believe that the vampires who attacked us are part of the same group that were moving to attack your countrymen in Diagon today. Dare we ask ourselves what they might have done with our power had they seized it?"

"Bloody hell…!" Astoria hissed.

"What's wrong, Mummy?"

Narcissa and Astoria both snapped around to see a wide-eyed Scorpius Malfoy standing at the open doorway to the sitting room. "Scorpius!" the latter breathed out as she walked over to gently lift her son into arms. "Did you finish your supper?"

He nodded. "All of it!" he declared with the bursting pride a four year-old boy would always show when he did something that pleased his mother. "What's wrong?" he then asked. "Why are you and Grandmummy mad, Mummy? You don't ever say bad words."

Astoria sighed. "Scorpius, do you know of the Black Maidens?" she asked.

He nodded. "Daddy says they were bad people."

"To some, they were bad," his mother stated, glad that Draco was just too distracted by the fact that whatever influence in the Wizengamot he could still exercise would now be wiped out once the just-ennobled Black Maidens would take their oaths of office to say anything in objection to what his wife was now telling their son. And knowing Blaise, the Black Maidens would be allowed to take such oaths tomorrow or Friday, Astoria mused to herself. "But to many others, they were trapped in something really bad, which hurt them a lot. They tried to make good lives for themselves, but they were tricked by an evil man to do very bad things. They were thought to have gone to Heaven to save all of Earth long ago, but the Friend of Dragons found them alive yesterday and freed them. They're all now Avalonians just like your Auntie Raven and your Auntie Cassie."

Scorpius blinked as he gazed on his father. "Daddy doesn't like them," he whispered.

"No, he doesn't. But right now, the matriarch of the Black Maidens has called down the Vengeance of Blood on those who would hurt them. Remember what I said about virgins?"

He nodded again. "They didn't go to school. They have to go to school to not be virgins anymore. If they don't, bad wizards could hurt them."

She smiled as she sat down in her chair; as she didn't personally care to explain the whole concept of sex to her son at this time in his life, she had explained the reasoning behind the Vengeance of Blood in a way Scorpius could understand. "Yes, that's true. But when it comes to the Avalonians, they're all born as virgins. It doesn't matter if their soul was born on the factory up in space or was moved over from an old body. They're all virgins when they're born. All the Black Maidens are virgins now, so their matriarch — because the bad vampires tried to hurt them yesterday — called on the Vengeance of Blood."

Scorpius' eyes widened in delight. "The bad vampires will go away!"

"_**That is what you think, boy!**_"

Astoria and Narcissa gasped on hearing that hissed voice…

…as thick clouds of smoke began to flood into the sitting room…

"_**NO!**_" Narcissa cried out as she tried to draw her wand…

…just as the picture windows nearby shattered inward, revealing seven women in German combat fatigues, wands drawn and ready.

"**_LAMIA AVADA KEDAVRA!_**"

Howls of outrage bellowed through the room as a green bolt of energy slammed into one of the dark clouds close to Draco while the other hit-witches lashed out with their own spells at the other vampires materializing in the room, that making the transformed vampire revert back to physical form before he collapsed dead on the floor. As Astoria dropped out of the way, holding Scorpius tight to her side, one of the vampires lashed out to rip open Narcissa's neck before he was dropped by the modified Killing Curse the Schwarze Mädchen created to deal specifically with the undead. Before the other attackers could react, more modified death spells nailed them. Once the last of the group of a dozen vampires was dead, the woman in charge of this field scout section — she had the domed frame rank insignia of a _Stabsunteroffizier_ on her epaulettes — scanned around before she moved to the fallen Narcissa's side, quickly doing first aid charms to prevent her from bleeding out on the floor. "«Get one of the healers here!»" Erika Flade barked out in German. "«We're going to lose this one!»"

"_Jawohl_!" one of the privates barked back before teleporting away.

"**_AVAD-…!_**"

Draco's attempt at the Killing Curse on Erika was stopped when one of the other Black Maidens who came here — she had the five half-chevrons of an _Oberstabsgefreiter_ on her epaulettes — spun around to deliver a devastating snap side-kick to his jaw, dropping him like a cut marionette. Scorpius — who hadn't yet seen what just happened to his grandmother — gaped on seeing such a wicked move before he clapped his hands. "Do it again! Do it again!" he cheered before Astoria moved to shush him.

The woman who had just dropped Draco, Lieselotte Kepler, chuckled before she wandlessly conjured up a lollipop for her new fan. As Scorpius took the sweet and began to suck on it, the native of Stuttgart placed her fingertips on the back of Astoria's neck. «Let him go to sleep so he doesn't see his grandmother hurt, _Markgräfin_ Malfoy,» she telepathically bade. «Don't worry about her. We have access to the factory now.»

Astoria wordlessly and wandlessly charming her son asleep. With a nod of thanks, she carried him out of the room just as another woman came into the room, also bearing the rank insignia of an _Oberstabsgefreiter_ on her epaulettes…as well as the lanyard of the Red Cross on her arm. "«My God! What happened?!»" Käthe Bien demanded.

"«Here, Käthe!»" Erika snapped.

The mediwitch of the Intelligence Company ran over as she drew her wand to put stasis spells on Narcissa's wounds. As one of the privates moved to assist, Erika got up to scan around. "Is there a house elf here?!" she called out in accented English.

_Pop!_ "What do you need of Tiffy, Mistress?" a cute girl elf asked.

Erika knelt down. "_Meine Herrin_, your house matriarch is badly hurt and may need to be moved to the bioroid factory in space to be healed," she stated, making Tiffy gasp on being called "my lady" in German. "I need to know this for the safety of your family: Did these vampires here come with your master to this house in the last few days?"

Tiffy blinked before shaking her head. "There is no vampire here, Mistress. Tiffy is not sure what these things are, but they're not vampires! Tiffy is sure, Mistress!"

That response made Erika blink before she gazed on the unmoving forms on the floor all around the sitting room. "Go keep watch over your master's son, _meine Herrin_," she bade Tiffy with a smile. As the madly-blushing elf, who was not used to be addressed so respectfully by any human, popped away to do as she was bade — and as Käthe barked out for a litter to be made to get Narcissa transported into space — the field scout drew her wand and moved to do a diagnostic spell on a female vampire, whose features had shifted to a more human form. And a VERY gorgeous one at that, which made Erika blink for a moment on detecting some unique enchantments in her body…and nothing that would indicate this being was human, much less vampire! "«What the…?»"

"«What is it, Erika?»"

That was one of the senior privates in Erika's section, Ilse Henoth. "«Ilse, is this what I think this is?»" Erika asked of the native of Cologne, pointing to the vampire.

Drawing her own wand, Ilse did her own diagnostics…before she gaped. "_Lieber Gott_…!" she hissed out before she moved to unbutton the unmoving woman's shirt to expose what was underneath. As a chiming noise in the background signalled the removal of Narcissa Malfoy and Käthe Bien to the factory, Ilse stared at the woman's breasts for a moment before she moved to gently feel under the band of her trousers. A second later, she gasped as she felt something QUITE unique at the nexus of the dead woman's legs. "«Erika…we need to get Linn here right away,»" she hissed out.

Erika nodded. "«Go!»"

"_Jawohl_!"

Ilse raced off to do as she was bade. Shaking her head, Erika rose before turning as Astoria came into the room, a cup of tea in hand. "Would you like something to drink, Corporal Flade?" the wife of the Marquess of Cumbria offered as she held out the cup.

The native of Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate chuckled as she nodded her thanks. "Your mother-in-law will be fine," she assured her before sipping the tea. "Your son?"

"Asleep. What of Draco?"

Erika looked over. "He'll be turned over to my company commander — that's _Majorin_ Linn Heinrich, by the way — for questioning. Did you know of your other 'guests?'"

"No! I even asked our house elves about them!" Astoria reported. "How could they _not_ be vampires, Corporal?! You struck them down with a vampire-specific curse!"

"_Ja_, we did…but all that did was destroy their living souls that were possessing bodies that — if what I think they are is correct — should be in cold storage in a sealed underground bunker on the grounds of the Trischen Academy that was closed off by us a half-month before _Freiherr_ Dumbledore and Minister Grindelwald had their duel." At Astoria's confused look, Erika added, "Bunkers are a type of dungeon."

"War golems?!"

Astoria's head snapped around. "Raven!"

She ran over to embrace her sister-in-law, who had just been escorted into the room by another Black Maiden bearing the rank insignia of a _Konstabel_ in the Royal Danish Army. "Magistra Magi Raven Malfoy, Erika," the young hit-witch, a native of the island of Samsø named Rachel Krag, said with a polite bow of her head.

"_Danke_, Rachel," Erika stated as she set the tea cup aside before politely bowing. "And you're almost correct, Magistra Magi," she stated as she waved Raven to where the leader of this group of "vampires" was now sprawled out on the floor. "_Ja_, they're golems…but we think they might have been possessed by the spirits of vampires; that's how we were able to 'kill' them. Didn't you sense them when you were here?"

"No," Raven hissed out as she glared on Draco, who now was tied down with magic-dampening restraints. "Then again, I don't live here full-time. I reside with my lover down in Chudleigh; I only visit here to be with my mother. Where is she?"

"In orbit," Erika stated, which made Raven's eyes go wide as she immediately realized what the German hit-witch was implying. "Don't worry! Our mediwitch is a very skilled healer; you won't lose her! Your family is safe, _Frau Markgräfin_!"

Raven blinked before an emotionless mask crossed her face. "Not yet."

That made Erika blink — though her empathy was quick to sense an explosion of sheer FURY billowing from the other woman's heart — before she watched Raven march over to the unconscious Draco. "Excuse me, please," she bade the two privates who had tied down her brother, then waved her hand. "_Rennervate_!" she hissed out.

As Draco croaked out in shock before a pained moan escaped him from the nasty bruise now appearing on his chin, he then gasped as a pair of hands snared him by the neck and yanked him up before spinning him around to smash him back-first into the wall. "What the…bloody hell…?!" he snarled before fingers snared his hair to make his skull slam into the wall behind him. As a hiss of pain escaped him, he gazed at the person who just hurt him…before he paled on seeing a pair of burning eyes glare at him from the face of the woman he had come to hate and fear above all else.

"You stupid, idiotic, selfish, arrogant BRAT!" Raven snarled out as she waved her hand to wandlessly bind him to the wall. "What in the name of all that is holy in this Universe is WRONG with you, Draco?! Do you see this?!" she demanded as she pointed to the fallen "vampires" sprawled dead on the floor. "They came here to make sure YOU — not to mention your wife, mother and son! — didn't do anything to defy your delightful new 'friend' Mister Sewell! And if it wasn't for the _**Schwarze Mädchen**_ coming in when they did, you'd all either be dead or TURNED! Why won't you wake up and finally realize the whole world doesn't revolve around you anymore, you fool?!"

"**_YOU STUPID BACK-STABBING GOLEM!_**" he screamed out. "_**YOU HAVE NO RIGHT…!**_"

"**SILENCIO****_!_**"

Draco's mouth flapped up and down soundlessly as Raven turned to stare wide-eyed at the woman standing at the doorway to the sitting room. "Mrs. Weasley?!" Astoria gasped.

Molly Weasley nodded politely. "Hello, Tori! Is Scorpius alright?"

The younger woman grinned. While she wouldn't have normally had anything to do with a person like Molly in the past, motherhood had changed Astoria's attitudes on a lot of things. "Sleeping peacefully right now, Aunt Molly," she answered.

"Thank Merlin for that." To Erika and the other Black Maidens in the room. "_Guten Abend_, _meine Damen_," Molly said in accented German, which made all of them smile as they nodded politely in return. She then walked over to stand protectively close to the intimate friend of her youngest son. "You foolish boy!" she hissed out as Draco shuddered on seeing the "Mother of All Blood Traitors" — as he had long nicknamed the Weasley matriarch — standing in his own sitting room. "I would think being sorted into Slytherin and being Severus' godson would have taught you something called 'intelligence!' It's not a quality that's restricted to Ravenclaws, you know! You need intelligence to succeed in life…and for all this time, you've _**never**_ shown it! Now you've allied with _vampires_ of all things just because you're afraid of your own SISTER?! Even if I had no reason at all to like your father, I knew how much he suffered when it was believed Raven was lost! Where's your compassion, Draco?!"

"Lucius ensured Narcissa could not fully teach him that, Molly," a strange voice hailed from the doorway, making Molly and Raven turn to stare in shock on seeing Severus Snape standing there, arms crossed and a scowling look on his face. "And given that Raven's very existence — not to mention her twice defeating her father — threatens Draco's place as leader of his clan…"

"Hah! If the stupid boy only accepted Raven as his sister, he wouldn't be lashed up helpless against a wall now!" a voice uttered from nearby, making people turn to gaze on the portrait of Brutus Malfoy, who was Marquess of Cumbria at the time of the passing of the Statute of Secrecy and a passionate mugalophobe…which was quite understandable at the time given the massive persecution magicals in Europe faced at the hands of normals during the latter years of the Seventeenth Century. "We never abandon family no matter what, not even a child saved by Headmistress Helga's curse of all things! And this whole idea of these Space Angels being golems?! Ridiculous! How on Earth could the leader of these nice muggleborns here call down the _**Vengeance of Blood**_ of all things if she was a '_mere golem_?!' Anyone could tell you that!"

As Draco screamed at the portrait to shut up — with no words escaping from him thanks to Molly's silencing charm — Raven took a breath. "Potions Master Snape, Matriarch Weasley, Sister-in-Law, my sisters…I ask you all to bear witness."

Everyone stiffened on hearing that as Draco paled on hearing the Arctic-level chill in Raven's voice. "Do it!" Astoria bade, which made her husband croak.

Turning away from Draco, Raven snarled out, "I should have done this thirteen years ago, Brother Dearest!" She then closed her eyes. "_Bona Spe Bona Vita Boni_…!"

Hearing that activation phase, Draco rapidly shook his head as he felt his sister's vast pool of magic billow to life…before he literally soiled his trousers on hearing the incantation that followed: "_**Marte Cruentum! Peto Iure Victoriae…!**_

"**_PRAEDA BELLICA!_**"

Her body flared star-white before a bolt of energy lashed out to lance into Draco's heart, causing him to shriek with ungodly agony as he felt the family magic ripped away from him to flood Raven from head to toe. As the house violently shook at such a sudden and unorthodox passing of the baton between the siblings as permitted by the Spoils of War benediction, Brutus Malfoy bellowed, "_**ALL HAIL THE MARCHIONESS RAVEN CHANDRA, THE MALFOY OF MALFOY! LONG MAY SHE GUARD HER MAJESTY'S REALM!**_"

"_**LONG MAY SHE GUARD HER MAJESTY'S REALM!**_" the voices of other portraits in all the other rooms of the mansion loudly chanted as one as the torrent of power now flooding the new Marchioness of Cumbria finally faded…and the just-deposed Marquess of Cumbria collapsed in an unconscious daze on the floor, a pained moan escaping him.

Raven blinked as she felt her eyes moisten before she gaped as Astoria ran over to embrace her, the latter sobbing as she held her sister-in-law tight. As the Schwarze Mädchen gazed in sympathy at the newly-ennobled matriarch of the Malfoys of Cumbria, Severus sighed. "Raven, I will contact your aunt to tell her what happened."

She nodded. "Corporal Flade, where did your healer take my mother?"

"To the _Freedom_," Erika answered. "That's where we're based out of, _Frau Markgräfin_."

Another nod from Draco's sister. "Uncle Severus, will you pass that on to Aunt Bella?"

"Of course." And with that, he walked out of the room.

Silence fell over the scene before Raven reached up to gently thread her fingers through Astoria's hair. "It's alright, Tori," she whispered as the latter continued to weep. She then gazed on Molly. "Matriarch Weasley, with my complements, would you please ask your husband if he can spare time to meet me in parley sometime soon?"

Molly nodded. "I'll tell him that, Lady Malfoy."

With that, she headed out. Raven then sighed. "Tiffy!"

_Pop!_ "What is it, Mistress?" Tiffy asked, a bright smile on her face.

"Is my nephew still sleeping?"

A rapid nod responded. "Yes, Mistress! Young Master Scorpius is dreaming now!"

"Good. Have Jinni move Scorpius' father down to the dungeons. Make sure Scorpius gets a good night's sleep. He'll need it, especially given what will happen when he learns what just happened tomorrow. When Corporal Flade's commander comes here to speak to Draco, make sure she's given all the assistance she requires. Major Heinrich — and our guests with us now — are acting on behalf of their war matriarch, who has a Royal Warrant with the power of Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren at her side. Understood?"

Another rapid nod from Tiffy. "Yes, Mistress!" _Pop!_

"What of them?" Astoria whispered as she nodded to the dead "vampires" in the room.

"We'll take care of them," Erika promised.

"_Danke_…"

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **Nakōdo** — A person who acts as a go-between for prospective marriage partners; **Anschluss** — Literally "connection," this is the term used for the absorption of Austria by Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938 (note that at the time of this event, the word was spelt **Anschluß**; this spelling would change to the current format in an orthographic reform done in 1996); **Meiō** — Japanese era name for the period between July 1492 and February 1501; **Wildes Heer** — Literally "wild army," one of the German titles of the Wild Hunt (the other is the direct translation, **Wilde Jagd**); **Ylikersantti** — Literally "over sergeant," this is the Finnish equivalent to a staff sergeant in the United States Army or a sergeant in the Canadian Army (NATO rank code OR-6); **Alikersantti** — Literally "under sergeant," this is the Finnish equivalent to a corporal in most armies (NATO rank code OR-4); **Suomen kieli** — Finnish language; **Magisches Konzil** — Literally "Magical Council," which was the German version of the Wizengamot from 1933-45; **Reichsrat** — Literally "Imperial Council," the upper house of Germany's parliament from 1919-33; **Kristallnacht** — Literally "Crystal Night" and more commonly called "The Night of Broken Glass," this was the pogrom against the Jews in Germany that occurred on the night of 9-10 November 1938; **Maaginenministeriö** — Ministry of Magic; **Eduskunta** — Literally "front house corps," this is the official name of the Parliament of Finland (though in Finnish, _eduskunta_ is always spelt with a small "e"); **Das ist gut** — That's good; **Raison d'Être** — Reason for being; **Die Freundin von Drachen** — Friend of Dragons; **Lamia Avada Kedavra** — An application of the Killing Curse on monsters (the word _lamia_ is Greek for a type of creature that feeds on blood); **Stabsunteroffizier** — Literally "Staff Subordinate Officer," the German Army equivalent of a Canadian master corporal (NATO rank code OR-5); **Oberstabsgefreiter** — Literally "Upper Staff Freed Guard," the German Army equivalent of a corporal elsewhere (NATO rank code OR-4) (the base word **gefreiter** was a rank title traditionally applied to soldiers who were freed from sentry duty at a castle); **Konstable** — Literally "Constable," the Royal Danish Army equivalent of a Canadian Army private (recruit) (NATO rank code OR-1); **Guten Abend** — Good Evening; **Bona Spe Bona Vita Boni** — Literally "Good Hope, Good Life, Good Spirit" (as demonstrated above, this is **Raven Malfoy**'s activation keyword).

2) _Harry Potter_ character and situation notes:

The real name of the Hufflepuff house ghost, the **Fat Friar** — much less his specific religious order — is my creation; both were first mentioned in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_.

The middle names for **Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington** and **Patrick Delaney-Podmore** mentioned by the Staff of Gihan here are my creation.

Patrick's group, the **Headless Hunt**, were first mentioned in _Chamber of Secrets_; that group came to help defend Hogwarts in _Deathly Hallows_.

The wizarding **Clan McKinnon** were first mentioned in _Order of the Phoenix_; their entire family was slaughtered by the Death Eaters in the First Purification War and Lily Potter was very close to **Marlene McKinnon**, who was a member of the original Order of the Phoenix. **The Viscountcy of Mull** (now Jade Speer) is named after the **Isle of Mull** (in Scots Gaelic, _Muile_), one of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland a hundred kilometres northwest of Glasgow.

The other earldoms mentioned here were created for _TI&tPS_ when I moved to flesh out Vanessa Zabini's other husbands. **The Earldom of Droitwitch** (now Diana von Meißen) is a twisting of the name of **Droitwich Spa** in Worcestershire on the River Salwarpe twenty kilometres southwest of Birmingham. **The Earldom of Swinford** (now Linn Heinrich) is named after a village in Leicestershire almost twenty kilometres east of Coventry. And **the Earldom of Romney** (now Christine Schultze) is named in part after **Romney Marsh** (first mentioned in this story in Part Four) in the southern part of Kent close to the English Channel coast.

And **Brutus Malfoy** was mentioned in _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_, published by JKR in 2008 as a companion volume to _Deathly Hallows_. In that note, Brutus was said to be the editor of the anti-normal periodical _Warlock at War_, in which he stated "muggle-lovers" were weak magicals and had low intelligence. However, given the times _Warlock at War_ was published — BEFORE the Statute of Secrecy was passed, when persecution of magicals in Europe was at an all-time high — the attitudes of people like Brutus were somewhat understandable.

3) Notes on the magical schools introduced here:

The **Babenberg Academy of Sorcery** (_Babenberger Akademie der Zauberei_) is located on a mountaintop overlooking the north bank of the Danube River near Aggsbach, which is fifty-five kilometres north of west from Vienna. The school is named after the **House of Babenberg** that ruled Austria from 976-1246.

The **Aarnivalkea School of Magic** (_Aarnivalkean Maaginenkoulu_) is named in tribute to the **Aarnivalkea**, which — in Finnish myth — are spots where eternal flames similar to will-o'-the-wisps burn. According to some legends, an _aarnivalkea_ mark a place where faerie gold is buried.

The **Læsø Søfort School of Magecraft** (_Læsø Søfort Magiske Håndværkskole_) is, as noted above, named after the island it is located on, **Læsø**, in the Kattegat that helps connect the Baltic Sea to the North Sea and beyond. A **søfort** ("sea fortress") is a coastal fortification that — on high tide — becomes an artificial island, thus making it inaccessible by land.

The **Tallemaja School of Magical Arts** (_Tallemaja Magiska Kulturskolan_) is named in tribute to an interesting piece of Scandinavian folklore. The **Tallemaja** ("pine tree Mary") are seductive forest spirits similar to the **Veela** as presented in the _Harry Potter_ novels…which are based on Slavic nymphs.

The **Rheinfelden Academy of Magecraft** (_Rheinfelden Akademie der Magischen Handwerk_) was a school located on the north bank of the Rhine River near the city of the same name in Baden-Württemberg fifteen kilometres east of the Swiss city of Basel. **Rheinfelden** ("fields of the Rhine") is one of a few towns across the world with a namesake city just across a political border, like **Niagara Falls** in Ontario has a namesake city across the Niagara River in New York. Before 1802, when the borders of Switzerland in this area was fixed down the middle of the Rhine River itself except immediately north of Basel itself, Rheinfelden was one single city and part of the **Breisgau** (the name is descent from _Breisachgau_ ["Shire of Breisach"]), a state then under the crown of the Hapsburg family as part of **Further Austria** (_Vorderösterreich_, also known as _die Vorlande_).

As an aside, after World War Two when all of Germany's magical schools were shut down save for Nibelung, Rheinfelden was reformed with French help on the Swiss side of the Rhine, becoming the national magical academy of the Confederation; prior to World War Two, Swiss wand magicals normally went to schools in neighbouring countries — depending on their native language — such as Beauxbâtons in France.

4) A **Magical Royal Resolution** (_Magisk Kongelig Resolusjon_) in Norway as issued by the ruling monarch has the same legal and magical power on all Norwegian human magicals as a **Magical Royal Proclamation** would in the United Kingdom or any of the nations of the British Commonwealth which share the same monarch (like Canada, Australia and New Zealand), a **Magical Imperial Rescript** (_Mahō Chokugo_) in Japan or a **Magical Executive Order** in the United States.

5) The term **Reichsgaue** — a plural of _Reichsgau_ ("Imperial Province" or "Imperial Shire") — as used here is partially incorrect. The Nazis divided Germany into _gaue_ — they were local administrative districts where members of the Party could register — in 1926. After their takeover of the nation in 1933, the Nazis effectively eliminated the old imperial state governments and replaced them by the _gaue_. After Germany began conquering external territory with the _Anschluss_ of Austria in 1938, the Nazis created the _reichsgaue_ to control such territories. The leaders of the _reichsgaue_ were designated **Reichsstatthalter** ("Imperial Governor") and had both Party and government responsibilities; the normal _gaue_ in Germany proper were each controlled by a **Gauleiter** ("Shire Leader") and were effectively a Party-only organization.

6) **Rhabdophobia** is the diametrically opposite fear of **Mugalophobia** (introduced in Part Three). This word — and its adjective and personal title variants, **rhabdophobic** and **rhabdophobe** — are based on the Greek words _rhabdos_ ("rod" or "staff"…which can also be used for a magical wand) and _phobia_. As I stated in _A Nice Quiet Place_ — though I first saw this term when I writing my _Icemaidens_ stories; sadly, I forgot the source — this is a more eloquent word to describe a fear of magic than "manaphobia" (or more properly, **Mageiaphobia**, which uses the Greek term _mageía_ ["magic"]) to describe such feelings. In essence, rhabdophobia is the fear of magic being done using any sort of physical medium, like a wand.

7) As noted in _TI&tPS_, Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren is divided into three physical blocks — set in rings around the prison core where Salazar Slytherin's retirement home was located — that served different purposes. **'A' Block** is the maximum security wing; this was for people condemned to life imprisonment at the Crown's Pleasure. **'B' Block** is the medium security wing; this was for people who did serious crimes but would be imprisoned for a set period of time between five to ten years. **'C' Block** is the low security wing; this was for people who did minor crimes and would be imprisoned briefly. However, given the sheer power of the Hollows within the physical structure of the prison itself, even being condemned to a brief stay in 'C' Block would be a harrowing, soul-warping experience.

8) The **Military Order of Savoy** (_Ordine Militare di Savoia_) was an order of chivalry established in the **Kingdom of Sardinia** — whose territory encompasses the northwest of modern Italy and the Island of Sardinia itself — in 1815; the order was later made part of the overall orders of chivalry for all of Italy after Unification in 1861. It was split into five degrees; the rank of **Commander** (_Commendatore_) was the third degree. After the Kingdom of Italy was made a republic in 1947, the Military Order of Savoy was renamed the **Military Order of Italy** (_Ordine Militare d'Italia_) and exists to this day. Recipients of the Military Order of Savoy alive in 1947 were administratively transferred to the new Military Order of Italy, retaining their existing accoutrements and seniority.

9) The **Praeda Bellica** ("Spoils of War") benediction has appeared from time to time in various _Harry Potter_ fanfic stories; as to which story used this concept first, I can't say. In the universe of these stories, this is one of the few magical spells that requires an **invocation** (as done in _Mahō Sensei Negima_) before the benediction itself is called on. As shown above, said invocation is **Marte Cruentum! Peto Iure Victoriae!** ("Bloody Mars! I claim my right of victory!"), which calls upon the blessings of the Roman god of war.

10) Brutus Malfoy's salute when Raven Malfoy became **Marchioness of Cumbria** marking her as a "guard(ian) of Her Majesty's Realm" is because of the location of Malfoy Manor itself. **Cumbria** was — from the time it was conquered by the Normans in 1092 to be incorporated into the territory of the Kingdom of England until the effective union of the crowns of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in the person of **King James VI and I** (1566-1625, ruled Scotland from 1567 to death, ruled England from 1603 to death) — on an _**international border**_ with a neighbouring state that often went to war against the English, thus it had to strongly garrisoned. This also applied to the magical realms; despite the literal meaning of their family name — "Malfoy" is based on the French phrase _mal foi_ ("bad faith" or "unfaithful"), which reflects the family's willingness to switch their loyalties to avoid danger or punishment — Raven's family was ultimately loyal to the supreme power of the land…which is naturally the Crown.

As an aside, I realize that in Pottermore, the Malfoys are said to live in Wiltshire. However, as I've implied before, I don't really care for some of the "extra" information that's been released at that website, so I followed what I first devised in the _Icemaidens_ series and placed their family seat outside Carlisle.


	12. The Bloody She-Bear of the Steppes

Level Two of the Headquarters of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic, two hours after supper…

"I think I cursed myself, Harry."

Harry blinked before he gazed over at Percy Weasley. "What the hell brought that out?"

"'Two steps forward, one step back?'" the older man repeated himself from Tuesday.

The Director of the DMLE blinked before he chuckled. "Good point."

A polite cough from the direction of the main door into the DMLE operations room then heralded the presence of a Spanish member of the Black Maidens, the red upward-pointing chevron-over-stripe insignia of a _Soldado de Primera_ on her epaulettes. "My general's complements, _Don_ Harry. The group sent to Upper Flagley just reported in."

"What did they find, Nanda?" Harry asked.

"They were able to rescue _Señora_ Leolin and her daughter, but _Señor_ Leolin was dead by the time the team got there," Fernanda Núñez y Santiago stated. "_Doña_ Calliope was hurt, but it's not bad; it won't require a body-swap. An emergency blood-purge was done on scene. We passed the news on to _Doña_ Tracey; she's gone to see her sister."

"Wonderful. How soon will Linn be done at Malfoy Manor?"

"At least another hour."

"Thanks. You need some pepper-up?"

The young native of Jerez de la Frontera twenty kilometres north of northeast from Cádiz chuckled. "If I was still in my old body, _Don_ Harry, I'd probably need it now." She then perked as if she was listening to something before sighing. "Excuse me."

And with a muffled _pop!_, she apparated out. "Bloody hell!" Percy breathed out as the small team of aurors in the main office — who were monitoring those of their comrades who were out in the field helping keep the public safe and calm in the face of such massed attacks on their countrymen — of the DMLE gaped at the place where Fernanda had just been. "I know the girls in that platoon were trained to do multiple apparitions in a day, but she's going to exhaust herself if she keeps going like this…!"

"Must be that bloody ki training Lady Tsukuyomi and her lads gave them before the hippogriff shite hit the fan when the Yanks got involved in '41!"

People smirked as a scowling — yet now less-scarred; that was courtesy of regenerative treatments he had been given since February by thanks to a group of Avalonian-Briton and Avalonian-Irish "fans" of his who (once they were freed of that DNA loyalty lock that kept them from breaking cover) arranged to have one of the most feared dark wizard hunters in recent memory looked over by their healers — retired master auror stomped in, his magical eye spinning around to take in all around him. "How did it look at the Crouch home, Mad-Eye?" Harry calmly asked; he was long used to the older warrior's insane paranoia when it came to dealing with other people. Given what had happened to him in the late summer of 1994 thanks to the junior Barty Crouch, Alastor Moody had more than enough reasons to be constantly vigilant. "From what Nanda and her friends reported, it was bad. I can't afford to put my people on sick leave!"

Alastor growled as he took his hip-flask from his pocket and sipped a little of the lovely Noukiite-style spiced peach brandy one of his admirers personally brewed for him. "It would have turned even _**my**_ stomach when I was those kids' age, Harry," the native of the magical side of Dublin grumbled as he sat down in the chair in front of Harry's current work desk; said station was normally used by the duty watch auror as it was next to a fireplace. "Turns out that bint Timaea went right around the bloody twist after she lost both her son and grandson back in '95. Did you know that Barty Junior's body was still there — and still _alive_ even if it was lacking a soul! — all this damned time?!" As people gaped in nose-twisting disgust at him — dealing with a person who had been subjected to the Dementor's Kiss had been seen for decades in Britain as no different than practicing necromancy; anyone doing that for whatever reason was viewed with loathing by normal wizards and witches — the senior surviving member of the original Order of the Phoenix shook his head. "Even worse, it seems that Timaea — in her drive to find some way to have another child before she died — decided to go hunt down a few normal boys to have some fun between the sheets! Paedophilic bitch…!"

"My God! What happened?!" Percy gaped as some of the young aurors paled.

Alastor cackled. "You have to admit this about Gibbon's girls: They've got their own morals and they stick to them! When that team blasted their way into Timaea's house, they caught her with a lad — I'd swear he was your age when I was to have taught you DADA, Harry! — in her bed. Normal kid, kidnapped right off the damned streets! Once they understood that, the Black Maidens nearly ripped her to pieces before they put her in chains!" As the others in the room savagely grinned on hearing that — even if they were professional law enforcement officers, there were things that were beyond the pale…and the rape of an underage child was at the top of the list — the retired auror sipped from his flask. "They were disciplined about it — as you'd expect from soldiers in a well-trained military force — but you could tell they were within a hair's breadth of unleashing a few Cruciatus Curses on the bitch! So they got a little creative."

"What did they do?" Percy asked. Everyone knew that when the Schwarze Mädchen wanted to hurt people, they could do it…and be quite nasty in doing it.

"They used some pretty interesting jinxes and curses on Barty Junior's body…and forced Timaea to watch it all happen," Alastor snarled, his lips twisting into a smirk as he remembered the howling screams the elderly matriarch of the Crouches of Wells made on seeing her "darling boy" hurt so much. "It won't matter one bit in the long term. Barty's been effectively dead since that dementor got him in '95; it's just that his heart hasn't stopped beating. When that lovely Rosie saw what had happened in that place — not to mention _sensed_ what happened there! — she got one of their dispatch runners to get the Key to the Maze from Gibbon, then sent Timaea there…HEY!"

_That_ was Fernanda Núñez, who had apparated back into the hallway outside the DMLE offices before walking inside; she had just slapped the physically older man up the backside of the head. "_Señor_ Moody, do NOT ever presume to call _Doña_ Rosa that in our presence!" she snarled as she glared intently at him, earning a resentful look back.

"Nanda! That's _Don_ Alastor to you!"

Everyone turned as Rosa Fernández stepped into the room, escorting a smiling goblin in full battle armour. As Alastor leered at the pretty Spanish master healer — which made the others in the room smile on seeing that the legendary master auror was taking interest in a woman; the man had lost his wife Mary during the First Purification War to the Death Eaters — Fernanda winced. "_Doña_ Rosa! You can't let this man…!"

"That is ENOUGH, Fernanda!" Rosa snapped, making the younger hit-witch wince. "Now, go find Livia and have her come here right away. The honourable warrior who escorted me here has a message he wishes to pass to her from War Leader Ragnok."

Fernanda blinked before nodding. "_Sí_, _Doña_ Rosa!"

With that, she apparated out. Alastor watched her go, then he smirked. "They all love you, Rosie," he stated as he gazed on the Black Maidens' senior healer, then he turned to gaze on her escort. "None of your people were hurt, Axeclaw?"

The liquidator shook his head. "Not at all, Alastor," he said with a toothy grin; the two had known each other for years and Axeclaw's brother managed the Moody family account at Gringotts. "But there's a metric tonne of profit being made this evening thanks to what that Sewell chap — if it IS him given what was just discovered at Malfoy Manor — just unleashed this evening." He gazed on Harry. "My war leader's sincerest compliments to you, Marquess Harold. He wishes to report to you that the Magistra Magi Lady Raven Malfoy has finally corrected the mistake she made thirteen years ago."

Harry nodded. "The Praeda Bellica?"

"Yes," Axeclaw stated as all the others in the room save Alastor and Rosa winced on realizing what had happened earlier that evening up in Cumbria. "Right to the point when the Marchioness Raven claimed what she should have claimed when she struck her father down on the grounds of Hogwarts, she hoped that her brother would finally see reason. After all, a dozen 'vampires' had hid themselves at Malfoy Manor to ensure Master Draco's compliance to the 'alliance' made between his friends and those things. If the Schwarze Mädchen hadn't interfered, the Dowager Marchioness Narcissa would be dead right now and Master Draco's wife and son would either be dead or turned."

"I take it, Master Axeclaw, Draco still berated his sister as a 'golem?'" Percy asked.

"Indeed he did, Master Senior Undersecretary," the goblin replied. "Which is beyond disgusting in our eyes. Anyone with eyes could tell the difference between a golem and one of the Daughters of Sagussa. And even the blind people in this land must now realize that whatever tripe the idiots who've tried to put those poor women down these last few months was nothing more than hot air. How could the Viscountess War Matriarch Elizabeth call down the _**Vengeance of Blood**_ today if she was a golem?!"

The others in the room nodded before footsteps heralded the arrival of Livia Dietrich. "Is there something wrong, Rosa?" the deputy commander of the Black Maidens — who had been helping coordinating her people's actions from the old Potts family mansion near Romney Marsh, now owned by Christine Schultze — asked before turning to give Axeclaw the goblin salute of peace. "A waterfall of gold upon you, Master Liquidator Axeclaw."

"A waterfall of gold upon you, _Oberste_ Livia Frieda _Fürstin_ Dietrich von Crouch zu Wells, Lady Knight of the Order of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords," Axeclaw replied as he returned that salute. "My war leader's complements unto you, good lady. He wishes to report to you that the former Countess of Wells has been condemned for crimes unspeakable to Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren at the pleasure of Her Majesty. Because of the clauses of the Special Annex to the Treaty of 1779 between the Noble Tribe and the Crown of the United Kingdom, Mistress Timaea was automatically stripped of her title and seat in the Wizengamot. Both are now bequeathed unto you as her last surviving magical relative." He bowed his head. "We of the Noble Tribe offer our sincerest congratulations upon winning such a spectacular victory, Countess Livia."

Livia blinked before she sighed, reaching up to slip her fingertips through her wavy dark brown hair; she normally wore it loose to mid-shoulder but now had it tied in a simple ponytail. "It is not a victory I would have really desired, Master Liquidator."

The goblin nodded. "Understandable, my lady, especially given your predecessor's many crimes as just was discovered by your coven-sisters," Axeclaw stated. "Will you desire the curse-breakers of the Second Battalion of your noble coven under _Oberstleutnante_ Diana Daniela _Fürstin_ von Meißen zum Oberspreewald und Martin zu Droitwitch to examine your new home or would you desire to hire our services in that matter?"

"My beloved schoolmate's subordinates will be busy trying to put their lives back together since we expect this to be all over with by Friday morning and we can stand down," Livia stated as a sigh escaped her. "Convey to the master curse breakers and your own subordinates within your noble institution that I will pay the standard rates for a complete examination of my new home when the time comes for your subordinates to perform your proper duties of liquidation. Plus an adequate bonus of course."

Axeclaw bowed his head. "Five percent it is."

A shocked look crossed the German witch's face. "FIVE PERCENT?! _Mein Gott_! Bite your tongue, _mein Herr_! It'll be FIFTEEN percent and not a percent less!"

The goblin gargled in shock on hearing that statement from Livia. "My lady…?!"

"Master Liquidator, I will NOT bow to the common conventions followed by my fellow magical humans when it comes to dealing with the Noble Tribe in honourable business!" Livia declared as her hazel eyes flashed. "It will be _fifteen_ percent!"

Axeclaw blinked several times as his mind quickly calculated the level of profit his team would make out of such a huge bonus; as the turnover of the Crouch estate to Livia Dietrich's control would automatically include liquidators, he would get a handsome share of that profit. And while five percent — the standard bonus rate the goblins normally insisted on whenever their customers offered such — was a respectable sum of money…especially when dealing with an ancient estate like the one just outside the cathedral city of Wells in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, getting a _**fifteen**_ percent bonus would leave even the most junior-ranked curse-breaker feel as if they were swimming in gold! Such COULD potentially set a dangerous precedent, especially if some of his people got it into their skulls to demand that high level of a percentage from some of the more flinty members of British wizarding society, even if Gringotts did have a complete monopoly of the financial market in the United Kingdom…!

"My lady, I mean no offence, but are you sure…?"

Livia smirked. "_Mein Herr_, if the normal run of customers you deal with in this country cannot appreciate the excellent services your noble institution presents unto them, that is their loss, not mine," she calmly declared. "_Fifteen_ percent."

As he tried to fight down the heating of his cheeks at such a complement, Axeclaw slowly nodded his head. "Fifteen percent, my lady," he quietly stated.

"_Wunderbar_! Now, if you'll kindly excuse me, I need to get back to Romney Keep so that I can make sure our operations this evening haven't cost more people their lives. May you forever be showered with gold and your enemies' skulls decorate your home, _mein Herr_." With the salute of peace, the first leader of the Black Maidens walked out.

Axeclaw remained in place, making the younger aurors in the room gape at the sight of a senior goblin warrior looking totally gobsmacked. Seeing this, Alastor and Harry both coughed politely to get them back to work. That also caused the liquidator to shake his head before he gazed with a mixture of awe and fear at Rosa Fernández. "_Maestra Sanadora Doña_ Rosa, not that I desire to insult your coven-sisters' kindness towards us, but I fear that if what _Fürstin_ Livia did is going to be NORMAL…!"

"Fret not about that, Master Liquidator," the senior healer of the Schwarze Mädchen stated with a twinkle in her dark olive-brown eyes. "Your brethren in Spain will be sharing in the pain soon enough, especially when it comes to MY family estate."

He gargled as she gave him the salute of peace before walking out. Axeclaw watched her go before he turned to stare wide-eyed at Alastor. "Ye alright?" the latter asked.

"They're going to ruin us, Alastor!" the goblin eeped.

That made the retired master auror roar with laughter…

* * *

The Borough of Camden in London, Saint Pancras International Railway Station (to the west of King's Cross Railway Station), that moment…

"Thank you for travelling on Eurostar, sister."

Hearing that salutation from the young stewardess who had been standing by the door leading off the Class 373 Trans-Marche Super Train that had taken passengers from the Gare du Nord in Paris under the English Channel to London in a little over two hours' time, the tomboyish Slavic woman in the casual clothes with jeans and a small dufflebag slung over one shoulder nodded politely in return. "_Ne za što_, _továrišč_."

The steward blinked. "_Ty Rússkij_?" she asked in accented Russian.

"_Da_," the traveller with the short dark red hair stated before switching to accented English as she shifted away of the others disembarking from the Eurostar. "It's so strange, travelling under the Channel like that. Back in my day, you either had to take a ferry or fly across…and that was in an airplane with _propellers_."

That made the younger woman gape — though there was no flash of any sort of disbelief or other negative emotion on her face — before she blinked as she walked over to stand protectively close to the traveller. "You're Terran-turned," she said in a quiet voice before an understanding smile crossed her face. "Great Patriotic War?"

That made the traveller gaze on her before she smiled. "_Da_."

"Forty-sixth Regiment?" the steward then asked, the excitement of meeting a veteran of that particularly nasty side of World War Two overcoming her.

"_Net_," the older woman said with a grin, surprised that this young alien-born woman had immediately thought of her being a member of the famous all-women unit officially known as the 46th "Tamán" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, nicknamed the _Nachthexen_ by the Germans. "Though I am more than glad that they are reforming that as a space fighter regiment." Her deep blue eyes widened a bit as she tried not to look totally overwhelmed by what she had learned about her adopted race in the last couple of months. Lowering her voice further to ensure the normal Terrans who might overhear them, she whispered, "I was the commander of the _Moskvá Mágičeskie Front_ from the day the _Fašístskie Golovorézy_ crossed the border in the summer of 1941 to when the last of them were put down at Nurmengard, though we missed out on that as we were busy mopping up the mess we made at Greifinswald a week before that eunuch Hitler killed himself. You're aware of what's between Platforms Nine and Ten at King's Cross, _da_?"

"_Da_," the younger woman whispered back. She then gave the older woman a smile. "It's an honour to meet you, Comrade Marshal." Concern then crossed her face. "How in Lyna's name did you get out of Kítež, much less become one of us?"

"You may thank the hybrids who set up their village on the shores of Lake Svetlojár near Vladímirskoe," _Glávnyj Máršal Mágičeskie Vójsk Sovétskogo Sojúza_ Svetlána Il'ínična Múromeca — one of three people to have won the Gold Star marking her as Hero of the Soviet Union _**four**_ times; unlike her brother marshal, Geórgij Konstantínovič Žúkov, she won each of her stars in face-to-face battle against members of the Magische Reichsarmee between 1941 and 1945 — stated as a motherly grin crossed her face.

As the stewardess — the name tag on her jacket read **HEATHER** — winced on being reminded of those poor children born of Avalonian mothers and Niphentaxian fathers who had, for the most part, totally isolated themselves from either Terran or Avalonian after the Liberation and the migration to Earth, Svetlána added, "I just couldn't believe it at first. Me, the _Krovávye Sibírskogo Medvédica_ who liquidated dozens of magical villages across the Soviet Union at Iósif Vissariónovič Stálin's command before we were invaded, then helped savage all of eastern Europe over four years — banished to the Spemát to make sure I didn't launch a new magical war after my patron died in 1952…" Here, she shook her head. "And a group of children I would have sworn at the start were part-goblin began visiting the crazy old _bábuška koldún'ja_ trapped by the magic of a prison she was slammed into by the only people on Earth she would have considered her equals…and they didn't care." Her eyes began to tear. "They didn't care about my past. Those little angels just wanted to love their new '_shiei'cha_' even if she was condemned to the Spemát for life because she was seen as a threat to all of humanity."

"You were a product of your times, sister," Heather stated as she placed a comforting hand on Svetlána's shoulder. "Give anyone a chance and the right level of emotional support…and they can change. Even people like my former master." As the former Soviet magical warrior tensed, the younger woman winked. "Pity he didn't get that chance. He served in the fleet…and ultimately became dragon food." As Svetlána laughed, the stewardess then winked. "Just wait here for a moment."

The traveller blinked as the younger woman headed towards the engine car. A moment later, a grinning elderly man in the uniform of a Eurostar train driver came up. On seeing him, Svetlána was quick to sense he had once worn a different uniform. "Marshal Múromeca, welcome to the United Kingdom," he stated as he stopped, bringing himself to attention as he nodded his head. "Staff Sergeant Arthur Nott — 'Artúr Kántankerovič Nott' in your style — at your service. I was in Number 8 Commando and the Special Air Service in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and northwest Europe when you and yours were busy stopping Gellert's fighters from turning Russia into a giant funeral pyre."

"I take it you're one of those poor people called 'squibs,' Artúr Kántankerovič?" Svetlána politely asked; what had often happened to those types of people — deprived by the merciless Fates to weld the power their parents possessed — in Russia before the February Revolution did away with the monarchy was enough to turn anyone's stomach.

The retired special forces operator nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Pa was a prejudiced little shit who couldn't understand why his eldest boy never got an invite to old Hoggy-warts. While I didn't do what Marius Black did and joined Gellert as a way of striking back at the families that tossed him on the streets when he was a **_kid_**, I followed Dean Raeburn's example and put a bullet into Pa by 'accident' when he stupidly wandered into our training area in '44 before we did Overlord. Stupid fool was shocked to learn that the 'living shame' was still alive and wanted to remove me from existence since tossing me out on my arse as a kid didn't kill me." As Svetlána grinned, he shrugged. "Pity I couldn't have killed my brother Herbert; he joined up with ol' Tom Riddle — you know about him, ma'am…?" At her nod, he smirked. "Well, he paid for his alliance with 'You-Know-Who' thanks to Alastor Moody. He got married and had a son that stayed loyal to that half-blood bastard child before he became room temperature, then made his grandson join up just in time for the second round Harry Potter put a stop to in 1997."

Svetlána nodded. "Herbert's grandson wouldn't happen to be Theodore, would he?"

He hummed before nodded. "Aye, that's him. Never got the Mark or was forced to spend time at Her Majesty's pleasure in Gonebren Moor, but he's still around."

"And you wouldn't object if I arranged a fatal accident for that boy, Artúr?"

He tensed. "What did he do to you, Marshal?" he growled.

"He tried to kill me when I was helpless in the Spemát at Kítež two months ago," she replied, which made his eyes go wide with outrage; while there was never truly set rules of war — save to WIN it — as laid down in the Geneva Conventions, the idea of attacking a helpless prisoner was beyond the pale. Even more so when it was in the potential pursuit of something that had totally turned his life upside-down when he was a child of eleven and wound up expelled from Lundy Keep; what else would have made Theodore Nott do such a thing?! "Found a way to rape my mind, then got information about a certain project that — if it wasn't for Elizabéta Èduardovna Gibbon and her beautiful black angels — would have caused everyone on both sides of the Iron Curtain a lot of problems after the Nazis finally submitted to their betters in 1945. His doing that forced the hybrid children who lived near the Spemát to save me with a body-swap."

"The Werewolf thing?!" he then hissed.

"_Da_. Your grandnephew learned of a poor — but potentially lethal — version of the _Stal'nój Ángely_ the idiots in the SS wanted to have constructed as part of that operation," she replied as Heather — who remained close by to respond to her chief's needs and ensure privacy — gasped. "Over a thousand of the disgusting things!"

A hoarse breath escaped him. "Could they be here, ma'am?"

"I don't know," she replied. "That's why I need to speak to your grandnephew."

He blinked before nodding. "Alright, then. Heather?"

The stewardess perked. "Yes, Papa?"

"Escort the marshal to the Waterloo Club. I'll give you a note to pass on to Nate Carter so that people won't be alarmed that the Siberian She-bear is in town. I'll be there once I do the final checks for the train."

Heather Nott grinned. "Alright!"

"You adopted her?" Svetlána asked.

The special forces veteran of World War Two smirked. "Wouldn't you, ma'am?"

"In effect, I had no choice, _Továrišč Stáršij Seržánt_. The hybrids who saved my life two months ago practically adopted me as their new grandmother without a care in the world of what I once did," the Soviet magical veteran of Grindelwald's War said with a wistful smile. "As I just told you, Artúr, that's why I'm like your daughter."

He laughed. "Let me write that note, ma'am."

She nodded. "_Spasíbo_!"

* * *

South of Edinburgh, the reception hall of Glencorse Manor, nightfall…

"Let's hear it, Linn."

"_Jawohl_, _meine Generalmajorin_," Linn Heinrich breathed out before she gazed on her dataPADD. "Of the thirty-six magical homes attacked by our enemies this evening, all of them suffered casualties to one extent or another. Here are the specifics…

"The primary list of targets were the families of those members of the Wizengamot — and relatives of same — who attended yesterday morning's meeting at Lundy Keep, save for _Burggraf_ Theodore Nott. _Witwe Markgräfin_ Malfoy was critically injured and required a body-swap; that was carried out on the bioroid factory. Her son was deposed as _Markgraf_ of Cumbria by his sister. His wife and son are alright. _Markgraf_ Runcorn was injured, but received a blood purge on scene before being transported to St. Mungo's. None of his relatives, both blood and by marriage, were hurt. _Burggraf_ Matthews and his wife both escaped unharmed, though both their younger children received minor injuries. Their older daughter was critically wounded and is now in St. Mungo's. The healer on the scene recommended a body-swap, though _Burggräfin_ Camellia refused same; _Markgräfin_ Achelois Runcorn has been contacted about this and is heading to St. Mungo's now to talk to her friend. _Burggraf_ Goyle is dead, though his mother and sister came through it unhurt. _Freiherr_ Leolin is dead. _Freifrau_ Leolin was hurt and transported to St. Mungo's. Their daughter is safe and in the care of our team now in Upper Flagley. _Freifrau_ Selwyn is alive and well; she actually made a good accounting of herself before our people came. She has sent a missive to us offering an alliance of estate to you and the others ennobled today as an apology for supporting the former _Markgraf_ Malfoy and his allies in the Wizengamot. _Freiherr_ Smith and his mother were hurt, though not severely. And you know what happened to _Fürstin_ Crouch, Elisa. All other locations attacked suffered minor casualties, easily handled by our healers."

Hearing that, Elizabeth Gibbon took a deep breath. "How did that line in _Henry V_ go, Callie?" she asked her cousin. "The one the King said after Agincourt…?"

"'Here was a royal fellowship of death.'"

The leader of the Schwarze Mädchen blinked. "A fan of Shakespeare, Miss Skeeter?"

Rita Skeeter — who had come up with Callie Norman to Glencorse Manor just after the former had filed her stories concerning the Vengeance of Blood benediction sworn before the attack of the vampires on Diagon Alley, plus the inheritances won by the Black Maidens thanks to their blood relations to lost Wizengamot lords — smirked. "He was a confirmed rhabdophile, Brigadier," the _Daily Prophet_ reporter said. "When a lot of his fellow countrymen at the time would have burned people like us at the stake, he offered both his home in Stratford-upon-Avon and his theatres in London as places of sanctuary for those wizards and witches who wanted to avoid lynch mobs. He never wrote plays directly for a magical audience — trying to keep that sort of thing secret after the Statute became law would have been a nightmare — but there were many letters he did pen to friends in the Wizard's Council that are in the archives at the Ministry. And _Henry V_ is a popular play."

Elizabeth breathed out, "Well, it was a fellowship of death…though not royal, thank God. I can't believe that Sewell — if it is him, of course — expected the magicals of Britain to just collapse and bare their throats to him and his friends in the wake of something like this. What news from Trischen, Linn?"

"I've yet to get a full report," the chief interrogator replied. "Danielle took those members of her company that she could spare from operations here to Trischen to examine the bunker. _Herr Direktor_ Weasley went with them to inspect the place on behalf of the Ministry. Since we now know that the golems built to support _Unternehmen Werwolf_ have been brought into play here, the Ministry has every right to know of this."

"What was that?" Rita asked.

Hermione Granger — who had come up with Rita and Callie to join Elizabeth at her family home and current field headquarters — sighed. "_Unternehmen Werwolf_ was a plan the SS came up with to create a commando force that could operate behind Allied lines in late 1944. Atop that, it was seized as a propaganda weapon to try to convince the Allied leadership that German partisans — similar to local partisans who rose up in Yugoslavia and other nations the Nazis conquered — would rise up even after the surrender in May of 1945 to keep fighting. It never got support from the Nazi leadership; right almost to the very end, Hitler refused to agree to such a 'defeatist' measure as a weapon to be used against his enemies. Yes, there were attempts by fanatical Nazis to try to disrupt the Allies' operations even after V-E Day…but nothing on the scale that the legends claim. Our hosts were the primary reason why that never happened."

"Once our loyalty oath to Hitler was lifted from us, we began to actively hunt down Nazis to ensure they could never try to create the seed for a 'Fourth Reich' to cause trouble down the road," Elizabeth added. "You know of our two biggest successes, Miss Skeeter: The killing of Martin Bormann by Gretta and Jessica's and my helping the British capture Heinrich Himmler. But there were many others, especially a good number of those magicals who were directly conscripted into the SS or their female auxiliary corps like Janina Neumann." She nodded in the direction of the dining room, where the former Auschwitz camp guard was currently being held prisoner even if she was still too out of it because of the death of her lover earlier that day at Moroboshi Ataru's armoured hand. "Along the way, _Projekt Killer-Puppe_ was shut down by us so that it couldn't be used by some fanatic fool to cause trouble later. We planned to go fully dismantle the mess when we got the chance. The Battle of the Gates got in the way."

"What was that?" the reporter repeated herself.

"It was originally an attempt to create intimate companions in the field for members of the Magische Reichsarmee to make use of in lieu of visiting brothels," Linn reported in a matter-of-fact manner, that making Hermione blush and Rita gape. "As early as 1940, _Herr_ Himmler discovered that a lot of soldiers in the normal Wehrmacht were being laid low with diseases such as syphilis. He directed the creation of the Borghild Project to create a synthetic companion for soldiers to use in lieu of risking themselves with a living prostitute. It was cancelled in 1942 — I don't know why — and the prototypes were lost when Dresden was burned to the ground in 1945. But when I first heard of that project, I realized that the logic behind it made a world of sense."

"Why?" Hermione demanded.

"Hermione, think about it," Elizabeth stated. "In our case, it was frightfully simple. A coven of forty-four hundred highly-trained hit-witches in the midst of a world war fighting to revolutionize magical life across Europe and free those who were enslaved by the Europeans in Africa and Asia. Unlike other covens in history, our bond to Master Gellert was that of master-to-apprentice, not witches looking for a good wizard to help co-parent a child. Thanks to the demands of female biology, we risked pregnancies if we took a man to bed when we needed that sort of comfort; even if we made use of contraception charms, there was still the risk. We couldn't afford to be out of action for nine months because of pregnancies. Atop that, since we were all normal-born, the idea of lesbian relationships didn't sit well with almost all of us. Yes, in the immediate aftermath of battle, there were times when we gladly ravaged each other as a way of allowing the adrenaline that was pumping in our veins to drain out of us…but it was something we didn't really care to do all the time." She winked at Linn. "When Linn developed her first prototypes using some of the notes that went into the creation of the first generation of German Steel Angels…" A shudder ran through her. "Oh, my God! It was like being with Clark Gable!"

Hermione's cheeks reddened at the idea of having a replica of such a handsome man to sleep with. Even if she was nowhere close to selecting a future life-mate to start a family with, the normal-born from West Sussex was still a young woman with needs and had gone out on intimate dates with men before. She always did the same in the normal world so as to ensure potential enemies didn't target her lovers out of some hope to get at her; as always, pureblood traditionalist blindness to the "muggle" world worked in her favour. Atop that, the only men on the magical side of things she might have considered as potential husband material were taken: Harry Potter by Pansy Parkinson and Mandy Brocklehurst (and now, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin), Ron Weasley by Raven Malfoy and Neville Longbottom by Hannah Abbott. While she had explored intimate relationships with women — always with Luna Lovegood, who was quite flexible both physically and emotionally — before, such a thing wasn't really her cup of tea. In that, she could sympathize with the Black Maidens' attitudes towards that…even if their now being Avalonians would wildly shift those attitudes thanks to the bioroids being bisexual.

"I think I outdid myself," Linn noted with a saucy smile.

"So how did these sex dolls become 'killer dolls?'" Rita asked.

"That was because of the losses the Magische Reichsarmee was taking in the latter years of the war, especially on the Eastern Front," Elizabeth answered. "As you might know, the commander of Soviet magical forces was Marshal Svetlána Múromeca." On seeing Rita shudder in horror on hearing that particular name, the leader of the Black Maidens smirked. "You've heard of her, I take it?" she calmly asked.

"I've actually MET her," Hermione calmly noted.

Rita's head snapped over. "How…?!"

The normal-born from Crawley smirked. "When Sirius Black's will was read…"

* * *

_Gringotts in Diagon Alley, Wednesday 3 July 1997, mid-morning… _

_"Hey, Harry!" _

_Harry Potter perked on hearing his best friend's voice before he turned, standing up to grasp Ron Weasley's hand. "Hey, Ron!" He nodded politely to the other Weasley family members — including Percy — as they walked into the beautiful office currently used by one of the most feared goblins employed by the British branch of Gringotts. "May I present our most honoured and honourable host, Senior Director Erlking," he said as he waved to the amused-looking goblin in a well-cut suit sitting behind an ornate desk. "He was the manager of the Black accounts; he'll be doing the will reading today." _

_Bill Weasley gave the goblin the salute of peace. "War Lord Erlking, on behalf of my humble family, I greet you. May you be forever showered in gold, your foes' skulls used as goblets for blood wine and their bodies roasted over an open fire." _

_The former chief liquidator laughed. "You are too kind to me, Curse-breaker Weasley," he said as he returned that salute. "May your magic be strong, may you always return safe to your loved ones and may your hard work give them the fortune they deserve." _

_"You are too kind to us, War Lord," Arthur Weasley said as he and Molly bowed their heads to him, giving him the salute of peace. _

_The other members of Ron's family did the same before they took their seats. A moment later, the door opened to reveal Hermione Granger and her parents, Daniel and Jean. The normal-born of the Golden Trio stopped to bow politely to their host. "A thousand humble pardons for disturbing you with our trivial business, Noble War Lord Erlking," she said with the salute of peace. "May gold forever shower upon you and may the Gods of Magic trumpet all your victories across the Heavens." _

_Erlking returned that salute with a grin. "Lady Hermione, you truly flatter me. May your magic remain pure and whole and may you dance over the graves of those you destroy to bring justice to this sad world," he stated before nodding politely to her parents. "Master Warrior Healer Daniel, Mistress Warrior Healer Jane, welcome back to Gringotts. I'm Erlking, the manager of the Black family accounts; I will be handling the will reading to the late Marquess of Grimmauld, Lord Sirius Black. May your memories of the time serving Her Majesty always make you smile and may your skills in dentistry always make those who misbehave tremble at your very feet." _

_Daniel laughed as Jean grinned. "You're too kind to us. May gold forever shower upon you so you can provide for those you love," the former then stated for them both. _

_"Wait! You were in the military?!" Charlie Weasley asked. _

_"Yes, we were," Jean stated as both sat down. "Before we pursued our careers in dentistry, Dan was in the Special Air Service and I served in the Ordnance Corps; it helped pay for our education long before we had Hermione." _

_"'Special Air Service?'" a confused Ron asked. _

_"Think of them as non-metahuman versions of the War Hawks, Ronald," Percy stated. "Given the dependency many of us have concerning wands, they could — once we were disarmed…or even if we were still armed — kill us with impunity…and do it much better than normal soldiers could, even to the point where we couldn't BEGIN to guess what happened or why. And given the Queen's current mood…" _

_"Bad?" Daniel asked. _

_"Bad," Percy affirmed with a nod. _

_Hermione's parents nodded. Given how old-fashioned wizarding Britain was in comparison to the normal world, that there was such a strong loyalty to the Crown still amongst magicals was a good sign. Before they could comment, the door to Erlking's office opened to reveal Draco Malfoy and his mother Narcissa, along with a well-dressed man with the air of a barrister; no doubt, Harry mused, he represented Bellatrix Lestrange since she couldn't risk coming here without being killed or thrown back into Azkaban. They were followed by Luna Lovegood, her father Xenophilius, Remus Lupin, a raven-haired version of Narcissa, a pleasant-looking man her age in normal clothes and Nymphadora Tonks; no doubt, the adults Harry hadn't recognized who accompanied the last living Marauder here were Nymphadora's parents, Theodore and Andromeda. _

_Next to come into the office was a harried Cornelius Fudge, who — much to Harry's personal delight — didn't have a simpering Dolores Umbridge at his side._ Then again, Sally-Anne and her wife just took care of that stupid little woman_, the Boy-Who-Lived mused as the soon-to-be deposed minister was followed into the room by Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape and some of the other members of the Order of the Phoenix. Much to Harry's personal disgust, none of them did so much as politely nod to their host; Draco and his mother didn't even do that! Well, wasn't that too bad… _

_"Please be seated," Erlking stated in a frigid voice, which made all the newcomers visibly wince or cower before they took their seats. "The Lady Tsukuyomi is slightly delayed. The will reading cannot begin without her, I am afraid to say." _

_Draco jolted. "WHAT?! You mean it's true?! How could…?!" _

_"DRACO!" Narcissa snapped. "Be silent!" As Draco spun to stare wide-eyed at his mother, Narcissa turned to bow apologetically to their host. "My apologies for my son's behaviour, Senior Director. It has been quite a few harrowing days for us." _

_Harry said nothing, though there was a mirthless smirk on his face. Seeing that made many of the people wince in fear as they wondered what was going through his head…though both Fred and George Weasley immediately suspected there was a prank involved. Given the developments since the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, neither Albus nor Severus dared use Legilimency to probe the mind of the Boy-Who-Lived right now. Not only would the wards inside Erlking's office detect such — which would be grounds for war in the eyes of the goblins even if such an action was directed against another wizard and not a goblin — Harry had a necklace with a meson crystal hanging from it. No doubt, the headmaster realized, Yomigawa Tsukiko had keyed that into Harry's life force, making removing such a lethal act to the idiot stupid enough to try that. _

_Before Erlking could say anything in response, the door opened again, revealing Alastor Moody. "War Lord Erlking, an eternal fountain of gold on you and yours," the retired master auror stated with the salute of peace before declaring, "The retired Mahō-Shōgun of the Empire of Japan, Generalissima the Countess Tsukiko of the Magical Domain of Yomigawa within the Imperial Province of Hizen, Lady Tsukuyomi-no-Tsukushi, Destroyer of the International Confederation of Wizards and Liberator of All Asia…" — a savage grin crossed his face — "…and the retired marshal commander-in-chief of the Moscow Magical Front of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Chief Marshal of Magical Troops and Quadruple Heroine of the Soviet Union Svetlána Il'ínična Múromeca, Destroyer of Greifinswald, Liberator of Europe, Grand Warrior Sorceress of the Order of Koščéj in the First Degree." _

_Albus gargled in grey-faced horror as the others turned to stare wide-eyed at the two women now at the doorway. Dressed now in a more formal kimono in lieu of her normal Shintō shrine maiden's robes, Yomigawa Tsukiko had all her wartime medals and the special badge — paulownia leaves between crossed army colours and a naval ensign under the Imperial Seal — that marked her as the last living_ Gensui _of the Japanese Empire on her top. Her companion was dressed in a modern Russian Army uniform with the rank of a_ Generál Ármii _on her shoulders, her chest — on BOTH sides! — covered in medals that, to Daniel Granger's knowledgeable eyes, indicated she had been busy serving her homeland; much that he knew the Russians tended to go overboard with medals and decorations, a lot of those ribbons didn't look the least bit like campaign medals or long service awards. And while she seemed about the same age physically as Minerva McGonagall, there was a frightening vitality to this beautiful woman with the grey-shot dark red hair and the deep sea-blue eyes that Hermione's house mistress simply didn't have. _

_"Lady Tsukuyomi, Comrade Marshal Múromeca, welcome to Gringotts London," Erlking said with a bow to the newcomers. "Please, be welcome here. May your magic remain forever strong and all those who oppose you tremble in mortal fear at your coming." _

_"As always, Erlking-dono, you are truly respectful to we humble warriors who come to seek good tea within your ancient fortress. May your steel never break so you can use it to slit your enemies' throats so you can seize their gold and drink their blood as wine from their skulls after you beheaded them," Tsukiko said as she came in to place herself beside Harry, positioning herself between the Boy-Who-Lived and the Defeater of Grindelwald. "I hope you have caravan tea for my friend here. They don't serve it at Kítež. You would think Svetlána-san's wardens would know a lot better." _

_"Do not berate the stupid children who pretend to think they can cage me, Tsukiko Makotovna," a quiet voice escaped the Russian woman who had accompanied the Dark Lady of the Orient to this meeting, the tenor in those tones making all the magicals in the room save Harry and Albus tremble in horror as they all realized there WERE worse creatures in this universe than Voldemort or Tsukuyomi. "They can't help but feel terror when they are close to me. If that's the state of magicals in the_ Ródina _these days, Iósif Vissariónovič would be turning over in his grave at how weak people have become. Besides, I only stay within the Spemát because the_ Ródina _has no need for my services at this time…though, if such changes in the future, I will be there." _

_THAT made Cornelius gargle in horror as he realized that the Ministry of Magical Affairs in Moscow was taking notice of what was going on in Britain. The threat of the Bloody She-bear of the Steppes once more calling forth the hordes of magical cossacks which she had rode with throughout eastern Europe during the last four years of Grindelwald's War had been the_ **one** _thing that had kept pureblood traditionalists in Europe — those who had survived the horrid purges the Dark Lord of Europe had unleashed when he had come within a hair's breadth of becoming master of the Continent — from rising up wholesale to wipe out all the reforms the Americans and the Soviets forced on those societies they liberated after the Battle of Nurmengard. And he knew that the Department of Magic in Washington was sitting back and letting Tsukuyomi have a free hand in Britain. Then again, those stupid colonials had backed Grindelwald's chief ally since before they saved her from the Nagasaki atomic attack in 1945…! _

_"A pity I couldn't convince Borís-san to let you leave the country a lot longer than just a month," Tsukiko noted as she waved to the empty seat to the other side of Harry. _

_A disgusted snort responded as Svetlána did as her friend bade. "I wouldn't serve a drunken eunuch like Borís Nikoláevič Él'cin even if I was actually paid in real coin!" She then gazed critically on Harry, which made the Boy-Who-Lived blink as he returned that look with a neutral stare. "You are Hárold Jákovič Potter?" she asked. _

_He offered his hand. "It's an honour to meet you, Comrade Marshal." _

_"Harry…!" _

_"You are no longer Marquess Harold's legal guardian under any law, Baron Dumbledore," Erlking coldly declared as Svetlána warmly shook the offered hand. "Given that you deliberately defied the wishes of the late Marquess James Potter and his wife when you placed their son under the care of Marchioness Lily's sister — when it was expressly_ **forbidden** _in their wills to do so! — after they were struck down by Tom Riddle, your actions since that time are_ all _being brought into question." As most of the people in the room gasped on hearing that, the goblin smirked as he clasped his hands before his mouth. "A pity you couldn't embezzle anything from Marquess Harold's account, much less force a marriage contract between him and Young Mistress Ginevra there…!" _

_That did it. _

_"_**WHAT?!**_" _

_That was ALL the Weasley children, including Ginny! _

_"What in Merlin's name are you playing at, Professor?!" Bill demanded as people glared at Albus. "DEFYING the wishes of one of the Seven and Ten?! Are you MAD?!" _

_"You promised me that YOU were Harry's guardian! And that you asked him about making such a contract with Ginny on his behalf!" Molly shrilled out. _

_"MUM!" Ginny howled. _

_"Mum, how could you do that to Ginny and Harry?!" Ron barked out. _

_"I was doing it to protect your sister, Ron!" Molly stated. "And I was assured from the moment I discussed this with your headmaster that Harry had given his full support to that!" To Harry. "I'm so sorry, Harry! You know about Ginny's feelings for you! I was only looking out for my daughter's future! Please don't be mad at me!" _

_Eyes locked on Harry. He seemed to think about it for a moment before shrugging. "Much that I do understand why you did that, Mrs. Weasley, you should know this. ALL of you!" he then snarled as his eyes glowed slightly. "Thanks very much to_ Mister _Dumbledore, I know NOTHING of my place in this society! Why do you think I said in the Department of Mysteries that I honestly wished that I got an invitation to_ Meridiana _instead?! With the way people have treated me these past five years, I really have no home here…and feel as if I have no kinship whatsoever with any of your kind!" As people winced, he crossed his arms. "Your apology is accepted, Matriarch Weasley…as long as you never presume you have the right to dictate things to me ever again." Ignoring Molly's wince at that warning, Harry then gazed on Ginny. "Young Mistress Weasley, much that I am trying to understand this stupid, mindless veneration some people have felt for me for something my_ **mother** _did to that half-blood bastard child freak of magic called a 'dark lord' back in 1981, I cannot and will not accept any sort of intimate relationship built on those sort of feelings. Using the Life Debt that exists between us because of the incident in the Chamber of Secrets to force such a relationship between us is utterly repulsive to me. Also, I refuse to have anything to do with any person attending Hogwarts as long as_ Mister _Dumbledore is headmaster!" _

_As Albus sputtered in shock on hearing that unspoken accusation in the Boy-Who-Lived's words, many of the other people in the room nodded in appreciation at such a show of concern for Ginny's feelings. Fred and George both flashed their silent backer two thumbs up, Ron grinned, the other Weasley brothers gazed in delight at Harry for his show of respect for their little sister, Hermione gave an approving nod and Ginny herself flustered in embarrassment at the fact that Harry valued her freedom of choice…even if winning his love had been a fantasy of hers for years. "Still, the life debt between yourself and Mistress Ginevra must be resolved," Luna warned. _

_Harry nodded. "Good point, Mistress Luna. With your permission, War Lord Erlking?" _

_"Go ahead, Marquess Harold, Mistress Ginevra," the goblin bade. _

_Drawing his wand, Harry stood up from his chair and assumed the stance for a man taking an oath. "I, Harold James Potter, Marquess of Taunton Deane and Grimmauld, do hereby declare with my magic, heart, soul and body that in acknowledgement of the Life Debt existing now between myself and Mistress Ginevra Molly Weasley of Ottery Saint Catchpole, my wishes are thus: That from this day on, Mistress Ginevra will live her life as she so wishes to live it and seek whatever relationships she desires WITHOUT the influence of any adult save her father and head of clan for as long as she is underage. This I swear before Magic Itself, so mote it be." _

_Ginny rose from her own chair and copied his actions. "I, Ginevra Molly Weasley of Ottery Saint Catchpole, do hereby declare with my magic, heart, soul and body that in acknowledgement of the Life Debt existing now between myself and Harold James Potter, Marquess of Taunton Deane and Grimmauld, I acknowledge his wishes and will live my life as I so wish to live it and seek whatever relationships I desire without the influence of any adult save my father and head of clan for as long as I am underage," she then declared. "This I swear before Magic Itself, so mote it be." _

_Their bodies glowed to "seal the deal"…before an outraged scream escaped Draco Malfoy. "_**WHAT?! HOW DARE YOU DECLARE YOURSELF LORD BLACK, POTTER?! YOU…!**_" _

_A choked gargle then escaped the scion of the House of Malfoy as he found himself grasping his throat. "I find your noise annoying, brat," Svetlána coldly declared as her own eyes seemed to glow a pale blue. "Be seated and let your betters speak first!" _

_"Madame!" Cornelius croaked out as Narcissa and the lawyer moved to try to render what aid they could to the stricken Draco. "Senior Director, I apologize…!" _

_"There is no need to apologize, Minister," Erlking stated as Svetlána released the choke hold she had on Draco, making him collapse unconscious to the floor. "Unlike most other humans, Comrade Marshal Múromeca is considered a True Goblin Friend, free to use her magic within the bounds of the property of the Noble Tribe in our defence." _

_"That was because of the Liberation of Petrográd." _

_Eyes locked on Hermione. "How did you know that, Hermione?" Bill asked. _

_"It was in a history book I read at Harry's new home, Bill," she replied. "When the October Revolution began in 1917, the magicals allied to the Whites tried to steal all the gold of Gringotts at their branch in Petrográd. The marshal led a company of Magical Red Guards in to rescue the goblins — after the Whites MURDERED hundreds, INCLUDING the RAPE of dozens of women…not to mention broke into the underground city and slaughtered hundreds of CHILDREN…!" — most of the other people gasped in horror on hearing that, with many of the women becoming misty-eyed in sympathy; NONE of them had_ **ever** _heard this! — "…because of their 'defiance of their betters' — and tortured and killed all the Whites there. That's why she got her first Red Banner." Hermione rose to walk over and indicate the circular badge — the first of three such awards, two pin-on medals and one ribbon medal — with the red flag bearing the famous slogan_ Proletárii Vsex Stran, Soedinjájtes'! _next in order of precedence to the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of Lénin and the First Degree Order of Koščéj. _

_"You are learned, child," Svetlána stated. "What is your name?" _

_"In your style, Hermióna Daniílovna Granger, Comrade Marshal." _

_That made the Russian's eyes widen before an amused grin crossed her face. "Ah! You share a patronymic with a very good friend of mine!" _

_"I would think Dean would be ASHAMED at being considered a friend of_ yours_, Svetlána!" _

_Eyes locked on Albus, who was staring stonily at the leader of Soviet magical forces in Grindelwald's War. "I would personally think, Headmaster, that Major Raeburn — who's old enough to be your MOTHER, by the way! — could make that decision on her own," Daniel Granger stated, making many of the members of the Order of the Phoenix gape in awed shock at the sight of this "muggle" berating the Defeater of Grindelwald like that. "I will not stand here and allow a woman who has won THREE Victoria Crosses, the Medal of Honour and was declared Heroine of the Soviet Union and won the Order of Lénin — to say anything of another woman who was declared Heroine of the Soviet Union FOUR TIMES and won the Order of Lénin and THREE Orders of the Red Banner! — to be insulted by the likes of you! Why should a man who stayed in his comfy tower at Hogwarts — only to get his hands dirty at the very end — feel he has to right to criticize people who were engaged to end a WORLD WAR for all_ six years _Europe was ablaze, to say anything of the_ **nine years** _Asia was ablaze?!" _

_He sat back in his chair as Svetlána gave him an approving look, quickly sensing he was ex-military himself. "By the way, Headmaster, Marshal Yomigawa was so nice to arrange to have our daughter placed under her magical charge, which is legally binding under international magical law; your ministry has no power to change that if they don't want to risk losing their seat in Geneva." As Cornelius sputtered on hearing that, Hermione's father added, "We've already contacted the other normal-borns' parents to recommend they do the same. We'll have no more of you meddling in the lives of our children beyond our control! Atop that, the marshal arranged to have our home town warded against anyone wearing Riddle's mark. If they try to come in to attack our girl, they get teleported over to visit a place…" He blinked. "What's it called again, Jane?" _

_"Gonebren," his wife coolly declared. _

_Almost EVERYONE in the room croaked on hearing_ **That Name**_. "Bloody hell…!" Ron breathed out. "You're really serious about this! Are you, Harry?" _

_"Do you blame me, Ron?" Harry asked before turning to Erlking. "Shall we begin, sir? Time is money and we're horribly wasting yours. You'll be compensated, of course." _

_The goblin cackled. "So we shall, Marquess Harold." _

_He flicked his finger as a crystal ball on his desk began to glow, projecting an image of a smiling Sirius Black overhead. "_This is the last will and testament of Sirius Orion Black, Marquess of Grimmauld and Patriarch of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld,_" the image began. "_This recording was made at the International Mercantile Bank of Gringotts at their branch in Diagon Alley in the City of Westminster within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on Tuesday, the ninth day of April in the Common Year 1996 and in the Forty-fifth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty the Queen. This recording also supersedes all previous will recordings made by myself prior to the day this recording was made. Per the clauses of the Treaty of 1779 between the Noble Heirs of the Grandmaster Gilder Gringott and the Crown of the United Kingdom — AND per the Special Declaration on Magical Affairs Within the United Kingdom as issued by the International Conference of Magical Communities on Wednesday, the fourteenth day of February in the Common Year 1996 — this will is considered legally binding and cannot be questioned by any authority save Her Majesty the Queen in Her Right as my Sovereign.

_"_Bearing witness to this will are the following people…_" _

_Erlking's image replaced Sirius'. "_Erlking of Clan Tharok, Senior Director and Chief Liquidator Emeritus of the International Mercantile Bank of Gringotts, guarantor of this will per the Treaty of 1779 between the Noble Tribe and the Crown._" _

_Then came Yomigawa Tsukiko. "_Yomigawa Tsukiko, retired Generalissima of the Army of His Imperial Majesty the Heavenly Sovereign of Japan, requested to attend this meeting at the behest of the International Conference of Magical Communities._" _

_Then came a grizzled Russian man with almost as full amount of medals on his chest as Svetlána Múromeca had. "_Hero of the Soviet Union Alekséj Júr'evič Lomonósov, Warrior Sorcerer of the Order of Koščéj in the Second Degree, Magical Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, witness for the International Conference of Magical Communities._" _

_And then came a raven-haired woman with grey eyes looking to be about Harry's age. "_Meagan Rowanna Schwartz, Berlin Branch, Wolfram and Hart International._" _

_Shocked gasps escaped many of the magicals there on hearing that last statement as Sirius' image reappeared. "_Couldn't believe the last one, eh?_" he cackled before turning quite solemn. "_Now that the legal bollocks is out of the way, comes the good stuff._" He then put a noisemaker to his lips. "__**I GET TO GIVE AWAY MONEY!**__" _

_Laughter filled the room from the young people there as they applauded. Sirius then began to list his monetary gifts, which included hundred thousand-galleon bequeaths to Remus Lupin (with a hint to get married to the lady of his life), Andromeda Tonks (making up for the dowry that wasn't given to Theodore when they married), Nymphadora Tonks (with a hint to go get her man), the Weasley twins (so they could make sure people would remain happy), Arthur and Molly Weasley (in thanks for moving to care for Harry), Ron Weasley (for sticking up for Harry despite the times he let his anger get the better of him), Hermione Granger (to ensure she would be able to care for herself despite the prejudice against her)…and to the surprise of everyone there, Severus Snape (with an apology for what happened in their fifth year at the Shrieking Shack). Minor gifts to other Order members followed, then came the big boom: _

_"_As my right as godfather per the traditional oaths — which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn't betray James and Lily in 1981 as people want to believe I did; pay attention to that particular point, Cornelius, as Luna and her father are recording this! — and my legal rights per same since I was NOT given a trial for my supposed 'crimes,' I hereby declare my godson, Marquess Harold James Potter of the Noble and Most Ancient Magical House of Potter of Taunton Deane, _**emancipated**_ under both magical and mundane law,_" Sirius declared, making Cornelius gape as Albus shook his head. "_This is because of the abject FAILURE our whole society demonstrated when it came to an orphaned child who was saved by the sacrifice of two wonderful parents at the hands of a Traitor to the Crown and to Magic Itself named 'Voldemort.'_" As people croaked, the recently-deceased Marauder smirked. "_And don't get me started about the Dursleys! Don't worry; they'll be getting theirs! But back to my original comment about Moldyshorts!_" As the young people all roared with laughter at such a ridiculous nickname for the Dark Lord, Sirius shrugged. "_It rather shocked me when I found out from Harry that the so-called 'dark lord,' that incredible paragon of pureblood traditionalist virtue, is actually a _**HALF-BLOOD**_!_" As Draco squawked on hearing that, Sirius smirked. "_Even more so, he's a half-blood _**BASTARD CHILD**_ atop that, not to mention a child born of _**RAPE**_! And given that he is the last living descendant of Headmaster Salazar Slytherin, I find it so sweet to know that Tom Riddle — that's Voldemort's birth name, by the way — will _never_ be able to claim the Slytherin family magic, which is all centred NOT in the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts…but at _**Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren**_!_" _

_As more screams escaped many of the crowd, Sirius smirked. "_That's right, Draco! The noble 'dark lord' your father bows to all the time is a HALF-BLOOD BASTARD CHILD born of RAPE! Master Salazar was many things…but he did NOT approve of witches using LOVE POTIONS to snare a man — even a _muggle_ man! — to have a baby with! Think hard about that before you decide to get that mark put on your arm!_" He shook his head. "_Not that it will matter anyway. In this will, I declare the following changes to the succession of my seat as Patriarch of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and Marquess of Grimmauld, to be made effective on the day of my death:

_"_Marquess Harold James Potter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter of Taunton Deane is hereby declared my immediate successor as Patriarch and Marquess of Grimmauld…though, as per the Ministry Governance Act of 1705, he must elect a proxy to vote the Black House seat until such time as he legally takes a wife;

_"_Master Marius Arcturus Black is posthumously restored to his place as a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Because of that, his only daughter, Mistress Meagan Rowanna Schwartz, alumnus of the Nibelung Academy of Magic in the Mistresses Class of 1954, is declared as holding primary place of cognatic primogeniture in the wake of my chosen successor as Patriarch of the House and Marquess of Grimmauld;

_"_Lady Andromeda Persephone Black-Tonks and her progeny are hereby restored to their places as members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black;

_"_Mistress Nymphadora Arethusa Tonks, daughter of the Lady Andromeda, is declared as holding secondary place of cognatic primogeniture in the wake of both my chosen successors as Patriarch of the House and Marquess of Grimmauld;

_"_Any further children born of the Lady Andromeda and her husband, Master Theodore Lewis Tonks, will have successive places of cognatic primogeniture in the wake of my chosen successors as Patriarch of the House and Marquess of Grimmauld in order of birth;

_"_And ALL other living members of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld who do NOT forgo in their hearts and souls the _**old**_ motto of the clan, 'Always Pure,' in the conduct of their lives are hereby BANISHED from the House once and for all time.

_"_Also, I hereby call upon the Old Ones who gave the late Lord Marius the power to bestow a curse that will, over five generations from his day, forever DRAIN the magic from ALL those who bear the blood of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black of Grimmauld — and who continue to adhere to the _**old**_ motto! — to render them all SQUIBS and also ensure that their souls are to condemned to ETERNITY within the Shadowlands, totally at the Old Ones' mercy!_" Sirius grinned. "_Which they _don't_ have, by the way._" _

_Narcissa squealed out in horror before she collapsed in a dead faint on the floor. Draco looked as if everything he once trusted had turned out to be a total lie…which in a way, Harry mused, it was. The other man who had come with the Malfoys to this will reading sputtered before he raced out of the room, looking as if he wanted to get as far away from this place as he could. As Albus shook his head in disbelief on realizing that things concerning Sirius' family were far more dire than he ever thought possible, the image of Sirius then shrugged. "_Well, that's it for me, folks,_" he said with a touch of joviality before all humour left his face. "_Good luck in trying to change this, Albus. You need to get past Lady Tsukiko to get to Harry…and I really wish you luck in trying to get past Wolfram and Hart to get at Meagan. You'd need _Rittmeister_ von Taserich to win against the Old Ones…which — even if you possess a wand the _Rittmeister_ created; that's the one you got from Gellert, by the way — he might not be so inclined to do, given his favour towards muggleborns. I also asked Lady Tsukiko to see if she can get Marshal Svetlána Múromeca out of her current place of residence to come to Britain to help train Harry to put Riddle down once and for all.

_"_In other words, you sanctimonious arse, your 'greater good' — which is the _**very same thing**_ you ex-lover fought for, by the way! — is about to hit an immovable wall called 'Reality.' And if they don't smarten up, the _leicheblut schweinhunde_ who've run things into the ground in Britain these last three centuries are going to be _**exterminated**_._" As Draco croaked on hearing that, Sirius smirked. "_That, Albus, is what Elizabeth and Jessica Gibbon, Enid Geraint, Callie Norman, Suzanne Stuart and all the others from Hogwarts fought for…and gave their LIVES for in the end! You remember them, don't you, Albus? People who looked up to you…then came to feel that they had no home here in Britain and fled to _**Nazi Germany**_ of all places to make good lives for themselves!

_"_You — ALL of you STALEBLOODS who condemned me to twelve years in hell…WITHOUT even giving me the decency of a trial! — have made this situation.

_"_You reap what you sow._" _

_He smirked. "_I'd say 'mischief managed' now that I'm done…but I won't._" His smile faded. "_This is no joke. I AM being serious…and that's no joke, either.

_"_Take care._" _

_The image faded…as stunned silence fell over the room. It was then broke by one person clapping her hands. "What a pity such a good man died," Svetlána calmly stated before turning to Harry. "I get to have you for a full month, Hárold Jákovič. We're wasting time. Hermióna Daniílovna, would you care to join us?" _

_"I certainly would, Comrade Marshal," Hermione said with an eager grin. _

_"What of yourself, Luna-chan?" Tsukiko asked. _

_"I'd love to come, Sensei!" Luna said as she stood while Xenophilius nodded his permission. "It'll give me the chance to interview Marshal Múromeca for the _Quibbler_." _

_With that, the others rose and moved to leave…save for Harry, who made his way directly over to where Draco still sat, stunned speechless. Gazing at the spoiled child who had tried to belittle him for the past five years, the Boy-Who-Lived then shook his head. "Malfoy, I'll make it so simple, your inbred, staleblood mind will be amazed," he declared, making Draco gargle in shock at that insult. "Stay out of my way…or I have Raven kill your father…and declare the Praeda Bellica." _

_THAT made Draco pale as Svetlána roared with laughter…_

* * *

"How did she seem to you, 'Mione?"

Hermione perked. "What do you mean, Liz?"

"Svetlána? How did she seem to you?" Elizabeth repeated herself.

The native of Crawley thought about it before she breathed out, "When she was calm and relaxed, she was a typical Russian lady, full of laughter and song. Not to mention had a massive addiction towards drinking vódka!" As the others in the room all roared on hearing that, Hermione shook her head. "But underneath all that, she was a monster that could have scared Voldemort to death. I heard she was said to be Stálin's mistress. She denied it…but she did confess to doing everything he wanted her to do to keep the magicals in the Soviet Union suppressed. I can understand why Admiral Thompkins and Tsukiko-sensei were called in to put her into the Spemát after Stálin died! She could have easily triggered World War Three if she didn't control herself!"

"We know," Elizabeth breathed out. "I duelled her three times myself when her people started probing into German territory ahead of the Red Army itself in '43. Diana fought her six times. She got cocky on occasion and Svetlána took advantage; that's why Diana got the Wound Badge in Gold in the end. Svetlána might have been a borderline sociopath, but she wasn't an idiot." A tired sigh escaped her. "Magically, Svetlána was a true product of the Soviet system: All power, no finesse. But she was a Russian patriot…and loyal as a Hufflepuff to Iósif Vissariónovič. And given the sheer brutality of the 'Great Patriotic War' as our Russian friends call it — from what we learned after Hitler killed himself — the fact that Svetlána was willing to go an eye for an eye in return is more than understandable. And it was bleeding us out."

She sighed again. "Some of the technomancers working for Master Gellert decided to take Linn's idea and turn it into an effective weapon to use on the Eastern Front. But there were problems working the technical details out and the first prototypes didn't leave the development lab at Trischen until the end of 1944. Once the SS got wind of it, they proposed meshing it together with _Unternehmen Werwolf_ since many of the people working under Himmler began to realize that with the losses in the Ardennes Offensive and the Soviet advances in the Baltic states and the Balkans, any hopes of staving off final defeat were rapidly fading. So the technical team at Trischen spent the rest of the war on the normal side preparing the Killer Dolls for combat action under direct SS command. After we were freed of our oaths to Hitler, Linn led a small force there to terminate the operation, then seal off the bunker from all outside access."

"What of the technicians themselves?" Hermione asked.

"Obliviated of all knowledge concerning how to work the Killer Dolls, then dropped off near Greifinswald for the Soviets to pick up," Elizabeth reported.

"As to how the vampires got in there to get them out, I can't say," Linn added before raising a finger in emphasis. "Though I will admit that I didn't consider putting anti-vampire defences in that place. After all, vampires have no desire to really interact with 'living' humans save for getting blood to sustain them." She closed her eyes. "The basic design was made to react to the influence of magic, which vampires do possess to a certain extent even if they were normal people before being turned. We never could use mesonium in the design — which is fortunate for them — but there were other magical crystals we could use and did. So if Sewell's allies needed replacement bodies for him and those of his friends who had no bodies of their own…"

"These Killer Dolls would fit the bill," Rita finished.

"_Ja_."

Footsteps then echoed in the hallway. "Hello?!"

"In here, Arthur!" Hermione called back.

Arthur Weasley came in, accompanied by a blonde woman with sky blue eyes that might have been a poster child for "Aryan" beauty hadn't her hair been cut stylishly short at the base of her neck and she wasn't Norwegian, as note the white-trimmed dark blue Scandinavian cross-on-red field flag displayed on her shoulders below the epaulette slip-ons bearing the single star on a pale background framed by dark borders of a major in _den Norske Hær_. Danielle Larssen was a native of Furnes sixty kilometres east of north from Oslo in the county of Hedmark overlooking Mjøsa Lake. A 1937 graduate of Læsø Søfort, she commanded 14 Jäger Company under Anna Wittmann and had been one of the people involved in the near-destruction of Durmstrang in 1942. Her participation in that operation won her both the Knight's Cross and the Pour le Mérite Magique for her bravery in battle and her capturing a horde of precious artifacts that revealed the "treachery" of Durmstrang alumni when it came to the "suppression of the Greater Good" throughout Scandinavia…which, in the heated politics of the time, meant the continuance of pureblood domination of all magical beings in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

It was because of the willingness of Danielle and her fellow countrywomen who put on the uniform of the Schwarze Mädchen to risk being seen as traitors to their home nation that — as part and parcel of the Magical Royal Resolution of 1997 that accompanied the Treaty of Oslo which saw Durmstrang transformed into a modern and more open school — ensured that the Norwegian Black Maidens would all be posthumously made members of the Order of Sigurd. As an extra slap to the faces of the pureblood traditionalists in Norway who wanted to keep the "mudbloods" out of Durmstrang, Danielle and her cousin Alexandra — who commanded 44 Jäger Company under Elizabeth's sister Jessica — were, as the leaders of the successful attack on that school in 1942, both awarded the highest degree of Norway's version of the Order of Merlin, Grand Officer.

Remembering that, Hermione then grinned as she recalled all the European magical broadsheets at the time trumpeting that as _**Danielle's Vengeance**_.

Of course, the stalebloods in Norway didn't appreciate the humour in that.

Too bad…

"Dame Danielle," Callie greeted with a bow of her head.

"HEY!" the Norwegian hit-witch snapped as her cheeks heated up in embarrassment, her voice almost absent of her native accent. "Stop doing that, Callie!"

"We're entitled to a few laughs now, Dani," Elizabeth stated. "Give me good news."

"The best!" Danielle stated. "The chamber with Linn's prototypes was untouched."

Linn gaped. "Oh, _wunderbar_!" she groaned out with relief. "Where?!"

"I had my people move them to the Preceptory now."

"_Danke_! I'll go look in on them," Linn said as she stood up.

"Get some sleep first," Elizabeth ordered.

Linn turned. "Elisa…"

"I need you sharp and on your feet, Linn. Not working yourself into exhaustion."

The chief interrogator blinked before nodding. "_Jawohl_," she breathed out before nodding "What about Mithwold and Janina?" She nodded to the dining room.

"Send Mithwold to Zacharias Smith. He can take care of her," Hermione suggested.

"Alright," Elizabeth agreed. "Gretta can sit on Janina."

"_Danke_." And with that, Linn headed out.

The leader of the Black Maidens then gazed on the current patriarch of the Weasleys of Ottery Saint Catchpole. "I trust you weren't hurt, Arthur," she stated; as Arthur was Septimus Weasley's son, he had been accepted with open arms by the Gibbon twins.

"Not at all, Elizabeth," Arthur stated as he moved to sit where Linn had been; he had been filled to the rafters with tales of Elizabeth and Jessica by his father when he was growing up and — despite their "treason" against wizarding Britain — had found it quite easily to accept the pair as honorary aunts to his family.

"How bad was the damage down there, Dani?"

"Not too bad," Danielle reported. "They got into the main chamber and got all the Killer Dolls. But they didn't find the secret chamber where Linn's prototypes were."

"How did they get in?" Callie asked.

A snort escaped the Norse hit-witch. "Soviet-style spells. Huge on brute power but lacking anything towards finesse. I think our friends paid Mother Russia a visit."

"How's your Russian?" Elizabeth wondered.

"«How literate do you want, Elizabéta Èduardovna?»" Danielle countered in Russian.

The leader of the Black Maidens laughed; due to their lengthy service on the Eastern Front from the summer of 1941 to early 1945, they had all picked up on some words. Given the potential vulnerability of Norway to a Soviet attack even if Finland stood in the way, people like Danielle Larssen studied the language in detail and could speak it as if they were natives of Leningrád; most Russian magicals — unless they were normal-borns — still had that accent in the 1940s, even in the wake of the purges Stálin unleashed to ensure no magical opposition to him could ever arise as he forced the Soviet Union to come into the Twentieth Century. "Hermione, do you know anyone in the magical side of the Russian Embassy in London who could help us out here?"

"The magical Deputy Chief of Mission is a friend," Hermione stated. "I have to warn you that she'll be loyal to her country first. And she had relatives who fought the Magische Reichsarmee, though I don't know if any of them fought your people."

"Put a call into her right away and ask for her help if you can," Elizabeth asked. "We disabled those things to prevent a magically-powered Nazi fifth column from rising up and striking people down after the armistices were signed at Reims and Berlin. Whoever let the information on what was buried at Trischen loose might have been captured by the Soviets when they wrecked Greifinswald a week before Hitler killed himself; Linn reported to me that she couldn't account for everyone when she closed it all down."

"I'll call her now."

With that, Hermione stepped into the kitchen to make a call…

* * *

Near Tottenham Court Road Station (four hundred metres west of north from Diagon Alley, one kilometre south-southwest from King's Cross Station), that moment…

"Marshal Múromeca, welcome to the Waterloo Club!"

"_Spasíbo_, _továrišč_!" Svetlána Múromeca said as she accepted the warm handshake from WO1 Nathaniel Carter before she gazed on the two dozen elderly men…who — thanks to the slowed ageing process magical humans enjoyed in comparison to normals — looked as if they were in their mid-fifties on average; such would make many of them centenarians in real age. Quickly sensing auras of apprehension from some of the warriors before her, the leader of Soviet magical forces in the Great Patriotic War held up her hands to show she didn't have a wand. "_Továrišči_, please! I don't bite!" She winked as a huntsman's smile crossed her face. "Except for _nekul'túrnye svin'í_ who deserve it!"

The men standing there all blinked before they roared with laughter as many hoisted glasses and cups of alcohol to toast her. With that little icebreaker done, Hermione Granger's great-grandfather waved the visitor from Russia over to a nearby lounge chair. "Arthur told me in his note that Theo Nott actually got all the way into the Spemát to have your mind raped, Marshal," the current regimental sergeant-major of the reformed First Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment stated as he sat across from her, his face twisting into a scowl. "What sort of things was that little snot after?"

"You know of him?" Svetlána asked.

"My great-granddaughter is the Special Adviser on Normal Affairs to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She rants about his ilk all the time," the semi-retired soldier from Crawley said. "Atop that, two weeks ago, they finally did away with that stupid law they passed in 1957 that forbade Hermione from claiming the family seat in the Wizengamot as it was done in the old days; my late and unlamented father — who died at Hogwarts in '44 — was the last Baron of Ifield." Nathaniel smirked. "She wants to eventually do away with the Wizengamot as a magical version of the House of Lords — or your own State Council when you had an emperor as head of state before 1917 — and put in a fully elected magical version of the House of Commons. Everyone has a say in the future of wizarding Britain." He snorted. "Of course, the staleblood idiots…"

A laugh exploded from his guest. "_Bóže moj_! Is that what you call them now?! I thought that was something Sírius Oriónovič Black came up with for his will!"

"Aye, that's what we call them these days! And the arrogant sods deserve it!" a man snarled, his voice laden with a deep brogue, which made both Svetlána and her host turn as someone joined them, glasses of clear apple vódka in hand. Like Nathaniel Carter, this man looked to be about sixty or so…and it was all lean, muscled meat under his relaxed clothes. The only hint he had been a soldier beyond the proper haircut was a scar that ran down the left side of his face, creasing both his eye socket and eyebrow. Much to the Russian warrior's personal delight — while she didn't care at all for British arrogance, she would _never_ complain about their hospitality — the vódka was served with an apple skin at the bottom of the glass. "Warrant Officer Class 2 Trent Avoy at your service, ma'am. Fought in the Western Front in the First World War and in North Africa and up the Italian boot in the Second." As she nodded, Trent winked. "Had to change my name for the second go against the Hun to avoid the stupid questions about my not being as old as I should have been." That made her laugh as she accepted the vódka. "Matter of fact, just before Mussolini was killed, my battalion ran into some of your lads near Venice after they cleared Yugoslavia; they were on a search-and-destroy mission to make sure the Italians didn't leave any surprises behind like the Germans were said to have done with that Werewolf thing. Didn't have the finesse of Arthur's friends in Sport and Social — to say _anything_ of Major Raeburn's little troop — but by God, they were powerful brutes! I hope they got gold stars for that."

She nodded. "I remember that. Since Deánnetta Daniílovna's troop was operating in Europe at the time from Hogwarts, there was no real need to use memory charms to make the normal soldiers not think so much about magic. _Da_, _továrišč_, they did get gold stars; for some of them, it was their second award." As her hosts nodded in approval, she sipped her vódka. "It was a terrible time, _továrišči_. I was a passionate supporter of everything Vladímir Il'ič and Iósif Vissariónovič did to make things better for all the peasants and workers in the Motherland. I myself am 'muggleborn' by your terms, virtually self-taught even if I was invited to study at Gamájun before the Revolution distracted me from schoolwork. After the Nazis betrayed us in 1941, I knew they needed to be wiped totally off the map. Especially given what they did at places like Oświęcim." She simply _**refused**_ to address that horrid place by its German name.

Both Nathaniel and Trent nodded. "You were just like the Black Maidens themselves in a way," the former then commented. "All of them banded together to get rid of the landed gentry in Europe so that all would be equal. You pretty much succeeded in doing that in Russia…and then later in eastern Europe after Grindelwald was put down!"

Svetlána smirked on hearing that, completely unfazed by the comparisons between herself and the members of the deadly brigade of normal-born sorceresses who had flocked to Gellert Grindelwald's banner in the 1930s to create the Greater Good for all of humanity, magical and non-magical alike. And her host was right about that one point. While it HAD been bloody and sad — and in many ways, terribly addictive — there had been a critical reason for the magical purges that made the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s one of the most dangerous places for wizards and witches on Earth…not to mention cement her reputation as the Bloody She-bear of Siberia long before she was called to lead the Moscow Magical Front against the Nazis in 1941.

Even after the White counter-revolutionaries had been finally expunged from Russia in 1923, there was STILL potential resistance to the new regime bubbling up from many quarters, on both sides of the magical security divide. The magical resistance to the Bolsheviks came about thanks to those of the rich peasant class — the _kulakí_ as they were called at the time — who had magic and were determined to use it to create a "purer" Russia. As was soon revealed to Stálin by Svetlána and other loyalists in the NKMD, magical _kulakí_ were "purebloods" in the European sense of the term, heavily influenced by their counterparts when it came to their place in overall magical society. Almost all the _kulakí_ were filled with a disgusting and arrogant sense of self-entitlement…and it was _**all**_ thanks to being descent from the sorcerers who stood up to Genghis Khan's magicals after the turn of the Thirteenth Century when the Mongols exploded from their kingdom south of Siberia and ran rampant all the way to the Baltic Sea!

When he was told about this, Iósif Vissariónovič Stálin was NOT amused.

And when old Kóba — as Stálin was known back in his early days in Georgia — decided it couldn't stand, he ordered Svetlána Il'ínična Múromeca to go do something about it.

She did it…

…and in her eyes, the Motherland came out the clear winner in the end.

After all, the young magical warriors who responded to the _Ródina_'s call to arms when Operation: Barbarossa began on 22 June 1941 and flooded the ranks of the Moscow Magical Front had, to the very end, ALL been of the once-enslaved classes of magical peasants — the half-blood _serednjakí_ and normal-born _bednjakí_ like Svetlána herself — she liberated from the domination of the _kulakí_ over most of the previous two decades!

Despite the horrid casualties in four years of solid fighting over millions of square kilometres from the Urals to Greifinswald, the Moscow Magical Front — an _**army group**_ of six hundred thousand who outnumbered the Magische Reichsarmee on a three-to-one scale — had done most of the dirty work even if that sanctimonious, arrogant ass Álbus Percíval'ovič Dumbledore had swept in at the very end to claim the final victory…

"Nate!"

Svetlána was jolted from her reminiscence as footsteps heralded the arrival a wide-eyed man who looked as if he had spent a little too much time facing clouds of chlorine gas in the trenches of the Western Front during the Great War…even if he still moved with the grace and dignity of a man who had proudly fought for his King and country.

"What is it, George?" Nathaniel demanded as the others in the room instantly tensed.

George Prewett — a distant relative of Molly Weasley…though he hadn't associated with any of his magical relatives for decades — paused to see the strange young woman with the flaming dark red hair in the room…before his eyes widened in shocked recognition. Much to Svetlána's private amusement, he straightened himself to attention so sharply, one would fear for the poor man's backbone! "Marshal Múromeca, I'm sorry…!"

"_Továrišč_, you have a report for your friend," the Russian sorceress said as she raised a hand to calm the man down and let him relax. "What is it?"

The newcomer stood at ease. "Just waltzed by the Leaky Cauldron, Nate," he said as he gazed on Nathaniel. "There're a whole slew of female troops in camouflage standing guard in Diagon. Mostly Huns, in fact! When I got the chance to ask Tom Dodderidge about it, he told me something I couldn't believe!" He took a deep breath. "The _**Schwarze Mädchen**_ are alive! Can you believe it?! I thought they were all dead!"

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Is that a fact?"

Eyes locked on the traveller from Russia. "Ma'am?" Trent Avoy prompted.

Svetlána smirked as she swirled the vódka in her glass. "_Továrišči_, it is quite simple in the end. There's no need to panic in case my former opponents decide to act silly," she said as she gazed on her hosts. "I learned this back in 1941 when I put out the call for volunteers to fight as part of the Moscow Front…" She then shrugged before swallowing her drink. "Magical _Life Debts_ are so handy to call on at times," she purred before throwing back her head, a howling laugh escaping her.

The men about her all blinked in confusion…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **Soldado de Primera** — Literally "first soldier," the Spanish Army equivalent of a private (basic) in the Canadian Army (NATO rank code OR-2); **Von** — Nobility particle that means "of" or "from," which always comes before one's family name; **Zu** — Nobility particle that means "at," which comes before the name of one's manor home (or in this case, the name of a marquessate, earldom, viscountcy or barony); **Zum** — Nobility particle that means "at the" (a contraction of _zu dem_); **Wunderbar** — Wonderful; **Maestra Sanadora** — Mistress Healer (Spanish feminine version of the English title "Master Healer" [in Spanish, **Maestro Sanador**]); **Ne za što** — You are welcome; **Továrišč** — Comrade/Adventuring companion (plural: **Továrišči**); **Ty Rússkij?** — Are you Russian?; **Net** — No; **Moskvá Mágičeskie Front** — Moscow Magical Front (the official field army group name for all Soviet combat magicals mustered to fight in the Greater East Asia War); **Fašístskie Golovorézy** — Fascist thugs; **Glávnyj Máršal Mágičeskie Vójsk Sovétskogo Sojúza** — Chief Marshal of Magical Troops of the Soviet Union (specialist senior officers like this were equal to a general in the Western armies, possessing the modern NATO rank code of OF-9); **Krovávye Sibírskogo Medvédica** — Bloody Siberian She-Bear; **Bábuška Koldún'ja** — Sorceress Grandmother; **Shiei'cha** — Literally "second [generation] mother," the term used to indicate one's grandmother in Sagussan culture; **Stal'nój Ángely** — Steel Angels; **Stáršij Seržánt** — Staff Sergeant/Senior Sergeant; **Spasíbo** — Thank you; **Witwe Markgräfin** — Literally "Dowager Countess of the March" (equal to a Dowager Marchioness in Britain); **Unternehmen Werwolf** — Operation Werewolf; **Projekt Killer-Puppe** — Project Killer Doll; **Generál Ármii** — General of the Army; **Ródina** — Motherland; **Den Norske Hær** — The Norwegian Army; **Nekul'túrnye Svin'í** — Uncultured swine; **Bóže moj!** — God help me!; **Sport and Social** — Popular nickname for the British Army's primary special warfare unit, the legendary **Special Air Service** (**SAS**); **Kulakí** — Slang term for "tightfisted," which was used to describe affluent farmers that began to appear after land reforms launched in Russia in 1906; **Serednjakí** — Mid-level peasants; **Bednjakí** — Literally "pauper," these were the poorest peasants.

2) _Harry Potter_ character and situation notes:

**Xavier Leolin**, his wife **Calliope Leolin (****_née_**** Davis)** and **Hester Selwyn** were three of the background characters from _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_.

**Arthur Nott**'s father is **Cantankerus Nott**, the supposed author of the _Pure-Blood Directory_, which listed twenty-eight "truly pureblood" families (amongst them being his own). The purpose of the work was for "_the aim of helping such families maintain the purity of their bloodlines_" (as quoted on Pottermore). His relationship to **Theodore Nott** is my creation.

And **Trent Avoy** is my variation of the character of **McLean** from _Old Soldiers Never Die_ by **Rorschach's Blot**, marked as one of my favourites at this website. The **Waterloo Club** and its members were created in homage to the members of the **Regimental Association** which appeared in _OSND_.

3) As stated before, I use the Scientific Romanization system when it comes to transcribing Russian. This system makes use of some odd letter choices to avoid using two letter codes for certain single letters in Russian which could make things somewhat confusing. The basic codes used here go as follows (in Russian alphabetical order):

**Ë** — The close mid-back rounded vowel in a stressed syllable similar to the vowel in _y__aw__n_ when in the middle of the syllable OR the combination of the voiced palatal approximant and the close mid-back rounded vowel together in _Yo__rk_ when the letter starts a syllable or follows "**'**" (see below) (usually written in the second instant as "yo");

**Ž** — The voiced retroflex fricative similar to the first sound in the second syllable of _vi__s__ion_ (usually written as "zh");

**J** — The "short i" palatial approximant similar to the last vowel in _to__y_ (usually written as "y");

**X** — The voiceless velar fricative similar to the last sound in _lo__ch_ (usually written as "kh");

**C** — The voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate similar to the slurred last sounds in _ca__ts_ (usually written as "ts");

**Č** — The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate similar to the last consonant in _blea__ch_ (usually written as "ch");

**Š** — The voiceless retroflex sibilant similar to the first consonant in _sh__eep_ (usually written as "sh");

**ŠČ** — One of three two-letter codes in Scientific Romanization, this represents the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative which is similar to the first consonant in _sh__eep_ but longer, as if someone was shushing someone quiet (usually written as "shch" or "shh");

**Y** — The close front unrounded vowel similar to the vowel in _fr__ee_;

**'** — The "soft sign" that indicates that the preceding vowel has been palatalized (softened) or indicates a break between syllables (note that there is a "hard sign" which is Romanized as **"**, but rarely used in modern Russian);

**È** — This is a letter that normally is used in "loan word" (words loaned from another language) common nouns or some proper names, representing either the close-mid front unrounded vowel (as in _pl__ay_) or the open-mid front unrounded vowel (as in _b__e__d_ in North American English) in either the first position or immediately following another vowel (usually written as "e" or "eh");

**JU** — The mix of the voiced palatal approximant and the close central rounded vowel as in _you__th_ (usually written as "yu"); and

**JA** — The mix of the voiced palatal approximant and the open front unrounded vowel as in _ya__rd_ (usually written as "ya").

Note that with the last two letters, the "j" part of the sound is dropped when following a consonant. Also, an accent mark over a vowel indicates the stress point.

4) The **46th "Tamán" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment** was, as noted above, an all-woman's combat unit that served in the **Great Patriotic War** (the Russian term for the Eastern Front of the European Theatre of World War Two). Former in 1942, this unit flew one of the few biplanes still in combat service at the time, the **Polikárpov Po-2 Kukurúznik** (the nickname means "crop duster") general purpose training aircraft on harassment bombing and precision bombing missions at night against the Germans and their allies from 1942 to the end of the war. The regiment flew 23,000 missions dropping 3,000 tonnes of bombs by war's end, becoming the most decorated female unit in Soviet service. The Germans respectfully came to nickname these people the **Nachthexen** ("Night Witches").

5) **Kítež** — the current location of the **Spemát**, which is short for **Spe****ciál'nye ****Má****gičeskie ****T****rudovój Láger'** ("Special Magical Labour Camp"), the magical version of the Gulag and Russia's counterpart to Azkaban — is named in tribute to a mythical city set on the shores of Lake Svetlojár near **Nížnij Nóvgorod** three hundred kilometres north of east from Moscow. According to the legends, **Grand Prince Júri II of Vladímir** (1189-1238, ruled 1212-16 and 1218 to death) built a town named "Little Kítež" on the shores of the River Vólga…but later moved the town to a site on the shores of Lake Svetlojár, creating "Big Kítež." When he heard of this beautiful town, Genghis Khan's grandson **Batu Khan** (circa 1207-55) advanced on it, intent on its destruction. When the Great Horde arrived, they noted that Kítež had no defending walls and the citizens were praying to God for survival. Fountains then erupted on all sides, sinking the town under the waters of Lake Svetlojár. In the universe of this story, Kítež was one of the magical villages liquidated during the purges in the 1920s and 1930s under the direction of **Svetlána Il'ínična Múromeca**. In a reflection of Gellert Grindelwald turning the Nurmengard Magic Academy into a prison (then later being imprisoned in it after his defeat in 1945), Svetlána Múromeca made Kítež into the magical Gulag…and wound up becoming its permanent guest in 1954 after the death of her patron.

6) The quote from _Henry V_ came from Act IV, Scene 8.

7) Yes, the **Borghild Project** was a real project to create sex dolls for the use of German soldiers during World War Two as a "field hygienic project" to ensure soldiers didn't risk getting syphilis with real prostitutes; this was instigated by the SS in 1941. In effect an early version of the famous **Realdoll** silicon love doll, the Borghild Doll was designed with the same attention to detail as the latter American project launched in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, more demanding needs had the project's funding cut within a couple years of its launching. Sadly, all examples of this interesting little project were most likely lost in the fire-bombing of the city of **Dresden** in February 1945.

8) Notes on Russian and Soviet awards spoken of in this part:

Being declared **Hero of the Soviet Union** (_Gerój Sovétskogo Sojúza_) was, for the most part, to be awarded that country's version of the Victoria Cross, Iron Cross or the Medal of Honour. First instituted in 1934, it was meant to honour those people who performed heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society either as individuals or as groups. Prior to the institution of this award — known also as the **Gold Star** thanks to its physical form, a gold five-point star suspended from a tiny red ribbon with a gold frame backing — persons who performed great acts of bravery were awarded the **Order of Lénin** (_Órden Lénina_); as the latter award could also be given to those who didn't deserve the title "hero," the Gold Star was instituted to mark such people as separate and higher than normal members of the Order of Lénin. Like its equivalent awards elsewhere, the Gold Star could be awarded multiple times for separate actions; as Russians never followed the practice of using award bars or "V" devices on the original medal for subsequent awards, multiple Heroes of the Soviet Union wore multiple gold stars. Finally, all those who won the Gold Star had the right to have the honorific "Hero/Heroine of the Soviet Union" placed before their name. As with many Soviet-era awards, the Gold Star was discontinued at the breakup of the USSR in 1991…though in Russia, it was replaced by the **Hero of the Russian Federation** (_Gerój Rossíjskoj Federácii_). Other former Soviet republics like the Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia followed suit.

The **Order of Koščéj** (_Órden Koščéja_) is the Russian (and from 1922-91, Soviet) version of the Order of Merlin. It is named in tribute to the archetype of the male antagonist that almost always appears in Slavic folklore. He is sometimes known as **Koščéj the Deathless** due to his near-invulnerability to any forms of wounds thanks to his creating what — in _Harry Potter_ magical lore — seems to be a type of horcrux. The soul of the Deathless One was said to be, according to the legends, hidden in a needle inside in an egg within a duck, which is within a hare trapped in an iron chest buried under a green oak tree on the mythical island of **Buján**…which some believe might be **Rügen** off the northeast coast of _Germany_…! In the universe of this story, Koščéj was a warrior wizard who helped fight back the Mongol hordes during their invasions of what would become modern Russia in the Thirteenth Century. Because of his actions, it was decided to name Russia's version of the Order of Merlin in his honour when it was created in the early Eighteenth Century. Divided into three ranks like other magical awards, the levels of the Order of Koščéj are as follows (with Order of Merlin post-nominal letters for comparison):

**MO1** — **Grand Warrior Sorcerer/Sorceress of the Order of Koščéj in the First Degree** (for men: _Velíkij Vóin Volšébnik Órdena Koščéja v Pérvoj Stépeni_; for women: _Velíkij Vóin Volšébnica Órdena Koščéja v Pérvoj Stépeni_)  
**MO2** — **Warrior Sorcerer/Sorceress of the Order of Koščéj in the Second Degree** (for men: _Vóin Volšébnik Órdena Koščéja vo Vtorój Stépeni_; for women: _Vóin Volšébnica Órdena Koščéja vo Vtorój Stépeni_)  
**MO3** — **Sorcerer/Sorceress of the Order of Koščéj in the Third Degree** (for men: _Volšébnik Órdena Koščéja v Trét'jej Stépeni_; for women: _Volšébnica Órdena Koščéja v Trét'jej Stépeni_)

Note that the Order of Koščéj always follows the highest award of bravery in the overall order of precedence above all other medals.

The **Order of the Red Banner** (_Órden Krásnogo Známeni_) was Soviet Russia's first decoration, first instituted in 1918 and would remain the highest award given by the Soviets until the Order of Lénin was instituted in 1930. The Order of the Red Banner — so called as it bore of a red flag on it, that emblazoned with the motto _Proletárii Vsex Stran, Soedinjájtes'!_ ("Workers of the World, Unite!"), the rallying cry of communists everywhere — recognized those who had demonstrated extraordinary heroism, dedication and courage on the battlefield. In later years, it was awarded on the twentieth and again on the thirtieth anniversary of military service without requiring participation in combat. Those units/formations that were given the Order of the Red Banner had the right to place the honorific "Red Banner" before the name, such as "Red Banner Northern Fleet" (as people will remember from _The Hunt for Red October_). The Order was originally a pin-on medal; it was changed to a suspension ribbon-type medal in 1943.

The **Order of the October Revolution** (_Órden Oktjábr'skoj Revoljúcii_) was instituted on 31 October 1967 (the fiftieth anniversary of the **October Revolution of 1917**). It was awarded to individuals or groups for services furthering communism or the state or in enhancing the defences of the Soviet Union, military and civil. The Order ranked third in the order of precedence for Soviet awards after the Gold Star and the Order of Lénin.

9) Norway's version of the Order of Merlin, the **Order of Sigurd** (_Sigurd Orden_) is named in tribute to **Sigurðr**, a legendary hero of Norse mythology who appears in sagas and ballads across Scandinavia and Germany; there, he appeared in the poem _The Song of the Nibelungs_ (in German, _Nibelungenlied_), which reported on events in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries C.E. He is depicted as a dragon-slayer, which seems befitting given how dragons impact the _Harry Potter_ universe. As with other magical awards, the Order of Sigurd is split into three levels. From highest to lowest, they are **Grand Officer** (_Stor Offiser_), **Officer** (_Offiser_) and **Knight** (_Ridder_).

10) The **Gamájun Academy of Magic** (_Gamájun Akadémija Mágii_), Russia's wand magical school, is named after the ancient Slavic symbol of wisdom, the **gamájun** (a large bird with the head of a woman). It is located in the northern Ural Mountains near the shores of the Kara Sea.


	13. Most Unusual Gifts to the People

Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire (twenty-five kilometres west-northwest from the City of London), a house off Oxford Road (Trunk Road A40), an hour before midnight…

"…can only ask that all people who live outside fully-protected magical districts in the United Kingdom maintain protective wards at maximum density and keep all floo portals sealed until we can complete the full sweep of the country. Anyone who still requires assistance is advised to contact their local Auror station," a quiet yet well-educated woman's voice with the prim accent of a native of Brandenburg echoed over the wireless unit sitting on the small end table in the living room of the small family farm next door to Siblet's Wood. "While we can but hope that the danger has passed for now and that there will be no more attacks, we cannot guarantee same. Further updates will come as soon as they are released by _Generalmajorin_ Gibbon. _Danke schön_."

"On behalf of all of us in the United Kingdom now under the protection of you and all your wonderful coven-sisters, thank you, Colonel. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Lieutenant Colonel Lady Diana von Meißen, the newly-confirmed Countess of Droitwitch and commanding officer of the Second Battalion of the Black Maidens, speaking to you from our studio in Diagon Alley," Lee Jordan — who worked as the late night presenter for the Wizarding Wireless Network whenever he wasn't helping out at Weasleys Wizard Wheezes — announced. "Again, to recap this evening's top news story on the Wizarding Wireless Network, attacks at thirty-six separate targets across Britain by daywalker vampires carried out around suppertime were blunted with the swift reaction of the heroines of Nurmengard, who — after being rescued from a slumber of sixty-five years by the Friend of Dragons yesterday morning in a cave near the magical prison — were there to prevent the mass slaughter of dozens of people, including many of the current roster of the Wizengamot itself. As to why these attacks happened…"

A gentle wave of the hand caused the volume to turn down. "It's because Theo fucked up, Lee!" Millicent Bulstrode said with a throaty chuckle before sipping her tea. "Can't blame them for keeping quiet about that part, though…"

_Pop!_ "Mistress Millie, the farm animals are all inside the barn and asleep right now," an aged house elf announced as he stared upon his beloved mistress.

The stocky yet very muscular farmer with the wavy raven black hair and the dark brown eyes gazed down on the small creature who had been far closer to her than even her late parents Peter and Marion. "Are you tired, Nippy?" she asked.

Nippy shook his head. He had circles under his eyes and his movements — even for his age — were quite lethargic; in many ways, he reminded Millicent of Harry Potter's old house elf Kreacher. "Nippy is not tired, Mistress Millie!" he asserted. "Nippy is just worried that those nasty vampires will try to turn Mistress Mil-…!"

He paused as his head turned towards the front gate of the Bulstrode farm, which led onto Mumfords Lane, one of the side streets branching north away from Oxford Road towards the Chiltern Main Line connecting London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill. Millicent blinked. "What is it, Nippy? Do you sense something?"

Nippy blinked a couple times before turning back. "Nippy is not sure what Nippy is sensing, Mistress Millie. That something just popped onto the lane beyond the front gate. A group of a half-dozen somethings, Mistress Millie. They don't feel like nasty vampires or any of those nice Space Angels. Nippy is not sure what they are!"

Millicent hummed as she walked over to one end of the living room, where a thoroughly modern entertainment system with all the bells and whistles — it had taken Mun Aesup a WEEK to explain that term to the technologically-ignorant Millicent…much to the latter's profound embarrassment; even if she was a half-blood with a normal-born mother, she was effectively magically-raised and had found "muggle" things to be far too strange on occasion — sitting in one cabinet. Tapping a control to call up all the home programs, she keyed into the security systems to activate the cameras located on the border of her thirty acres of farmland; much that she didn't have the vast amount of material wealth people like Harry Potter, Michael Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass or Tracey Davis possessed, what she did have was more precious than gold and she wanted it protected. As soon as the multi-purpose monitor screen flicked on and converted to touch-screen format — "_Now THAT'S bloody technomancy!_" she had said when Aesup had explained how it all worked after installing it five years ago — she tapped the icon that allowed her to bring up the image of the area past the front gate of her house.

She then blinked as Nippy popped over to gaze on it himself. "What the heck…?"

"They are beautiful!" the aged elf whispered; given Millicent's sexual preference and indifferent luck when it came to seeking out a permanent life-mate, Nippy had taught himself how to properly understand human standards of beauty so that he could help find a wonderful wife for his mistress to take. "But Nippy not sure what they are!"

Millicent nodded. She had met several Avalonian-Britons who moved into nearby towns like Gerrards Cross, Beaconsfield and Chalfond Saint Peter after the Liberation brought over two billion of them to Earth…with at least twenty million of them claiming British citizenship, half of which were now living in the United Kingdom itself and the other half on the bioroid factory and the space stations that the Avalonians brought to Earth. While she had dated a couple of those women, she hadn't met a girl who endured the "time of the month" with the farmer and decided that Millicent Bulstrode was the right lady for her. Yes, she had dated several of Rose Potter's friends — including Rose herself — before the Liberation, but they didn't really count, especially with that DNA loyalty lock that had been forced on all of them ever since they were given their new bodies by Alicia Holmes back in the 1980s to restore lives taken away from them thanks to Voldemort. And while she understood that seeking out a potential lover would be a lot harder for someone like her, she had more time than most normal women before menopause would hit and she would have to seriously consider adopting a child.

It was _still_ bloody frustrating, though…

"They're frozen still," Millicent then noted.

Nippy blinked. "Does Mistress wish Nippy to look at them?"

She nodded. "Be careful, okay?"

"Nippy will be!" And with a _pop!_, he vanished from the living room.

Gazing on the screen, she watched as Nippy appeared just inside the closed front gates and began to use his elf senses to peer at the group of a half-dozen women standing on the lane. While the farm looked ordinary to any normal person that approached it, there were special repellant charms entrenched all along the edge of the property that would immediately make curious people who might want to learn what was inside the hedgerow-lined property to cast their attention someplace else. And while no Avalonian could be affected by those charms — a fact that was unknown to the average British magical — Alicia Holmes had made it clear to all of her people now living in the country that the Separation Act WAS the law of the land and it was to be respected at all costs; that actually saw Millicent fall under the extra protection of the Special Persons Branch of the Denham/Gerrards Cross Detachement of the Thames Valley Police, which was the auxiliary part of the force composed of Avalonian volunteers. Save for the odd time that Millicent had encountered either policewomen or Territorial Army soldiers of the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry (an armoured regiment based near the famous Bletchley Park at the northern end of the county) or the Second Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (an infantry battalion based in the county town of Aylesbury) when they came to purchase some of her fresh produce — atop the home farm, Millicent owned at least four satellite farms across the whole of Buckinghamshire, using house elves to keep the eggs, poultry and beef coming — at the local market, she hadn't really got to know many of the Space Angels.

So what…?

_Pop!_ "Mistress!"

"What is it, Nippy?" she asked.

"They are as still as statues, Mistress," Nippy stated. "Nippy feels magic from them, but it is not wizard magic or vampire magic. Nippy thinks they're golems."

That made Millicent blink. "'Golems?'" she said with a derisive snort, finding that rather ironic given the arguments concerning the Avalonians over the last several months…before her brow furrowed. "Who would make them?" she wondered.

True golems — beings created from inanimate matter, usually clay, who were brought to quasi-life thanks to powerful earth-based magic — were strictly regulated in Britain due to their capacity to unleash untold damage if they got out of control; that had been proven in the case of the Golem of Prague created by a wizarding friend of the famous rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel to defend his fellow believers from antisemitic thugs in the late Sixteenth Century. After she graduated from Hogwarts, Millicent's mother researched the creation of such beings to work as farm hands to relieve the pressure on all the house elves. Sadly, her being muggleborn had seen such research banned by the Wizengamot at the prompting of people like Lucius Malfoy in the late 1980s; the fact that Marion Bulstrode had done something like _**that**_ had not been forgotten by the Death Eaters and their allies, which saw her condemned to Azkaban just before the island prison was destroyed by Mun Aesup. Remembering that, Millicent hissed as her eyes misted over. Even a brief level of exposure to the damned Dementors had so wrecked Marion's health that she died a couple weeks later in her husband's arms…and had so enraged Millicent that she gladly went out to torture a dozen of Voldemort's marked followers into near-insanity before sending them off to Gonebren for the Hollows to permanently render brain-dead. And while Peter Bulstrode tried to maintain a stoic calm afterwards, the loss of his beloved Marion saw him join her out of heartbreak two years later, leaving Millicent alone save for people like Daphne, Tracey and Pansy…not to mention Harry, Rose and their closest friends.

"You sure there's no sign of vampire magic with them?" she asked.

Nippy shook his head. "None, Mistress Mellie!"

"No signs of monitoring charms or anyone close by?"

The elf shook his head again. "None!"

Hearing that, the farmer then hummed before she walked over to her work desk to draw out a special dagger. "Nippy, if something happens to me, get help," she ordered.

He nodded; he knew about poor Mistress Marion and what she had wanted to do before the nasty stalebloods hurt her. "Yes, Mistress. Nippy will get help."

With that, she headed out the front door and made her way over to the gate. Before she wandlessly unlocked the door, she gently prodded the tip of the dagger into her middle finger to draw out some blood. _Lucky thing I remember Mum telling me about this when it comes to controlling golems_, she mused to herself as the gates unlocked and opened up to reveal the group of women standing outside. Without hesitation, she walked up to their leader — a stunningly beautiful, dark-skinned woman with curly black hair that went to mid-back and blue-grey eyes dressed in stylish normal clothes complete with form-fitting blue jeans, a pullover sweater over a button shirt and trainers on her feet; she seemed to be a hybrid between an African and a Caucasian, which rather struck Millicent as odd — and stabbed her bleeding finger into the woman's forehead.

There was a flash of magic, then the golem seemed to jerk before her eyes blinked — perfectly akin to normal eye movement — and she focused on Millicent before a polite smile crossed her face. "_Guten Abend_, _meine Dame_," she began in accent-less German. "_Mein Name ist Melissa_. _Was für ein Service oder Befehl willst du mich führen_?"

"Do you speak English?" Millicent asked.

The golem blinked before nodding. "Yes, I do, Mistress," she said in English with a perfect BBC standard accent before waving to herself. "My name is Melissa." She bowed her head. "What service or command do you wish me to perform, Mistress?"

Blinking before taking a relieved breath, Millicent asked, "Is there anything inside you that would make you harm me or anyone within my house?"

"No, Mistress. The blood bond guarantees that."

"Was there anything in you before I made the blood bond which would have done that?"

Melissa blinked before a frown turned her lips. "I cannot remember if anything of that nature was placed inside me, Mistress. All I do remember was that some man had me woken an hour ago and ordered me to come here. I obeyed that order."

The farmer blinked before she nodded. "Nippy?"

_Pop!_ "Yes, Mistress Millie?" Nippy asked.

"Take Melissa here inside and have her wait in the living room. She's safe. I'll do the blood bond with Melissa's friends, then we'll take them inside."

"Yes, Mistress! Nippy will take the pretty golem inside." And with that, the elderly house elf took the golem by the hand and teleported her into the house.

Millicent shook her head before she moved to the next golem, a pretty blonde with dark green eyes who was dressed in clothes similar to her companion's. Once Tamara was woken and checked clean, the farmer did the same to Nike (a tall and statuesque woman with brunette hair and blue-grey eyes), Lea (a sultry-looking woman with grey eyes and brunette hair cropped at the shoulders), Brittany (a dark-skinned girl with black hair and blue eyes) and Stephanie (a busty girl with wavy auburn hair and brown eyes). Once all the golems were off the lane, Millicent did a quick scan-around with her eyes and mage senses before heading inside her property, closing and locking the gates behind her. As she headed back into the house, Nippy came up to her. "Mistress, the pretty golems are inside the living room. Nippy didn't see or smell any nasty vampires try to sneak into the house while Mistress was busy with the pretty golems."

"Good," she noted as she mentally raised the house's defensive wards to maximum, keying in the personal anti-creature defences that kept things like werewolves and vampires off the property. While she didn't have any real prejudices towards such "dark" creatures — having giant ancestry and being the daughter of a muggleborn, she never cared for that nonsense — the memories of what Fenrir Greyback had done to many of her own housemates at the Battle of the Astronomy Tower were still quite fresh in her mind.

And given the number of daywalker vampires in the country now…

With that, she headed to the living room to see the golems standing in line of review next to her table, all at parade rest. Noting that, she nodded as a voice inside her mind began to whisper that she had just discovered something very important. As to the "what," she didn't know…but given that these beautiful creatures had just popped up on her front doorstep tonight — in the wake of attacks by vampires on pureblood traditionalists across the country — it was hinting at something that most likely would lead back to Theodore Nott and his new vampire allies. She knew she wasn't trusted by Draco Malfoy and those of his friends in the Wizengamot these days thanks to her siding with Harry Potter and the Defence Association back during their sixth year — especially after Millicent served as part of the Inquisitorial Squad the year previous; she had been forced into that out of peer pressure, not any deep desire to support the pureblood traditionalist cause — to fight against Voldemort and his allies, so it stood to reason that Draco, Theo and their new friends considered her a threat.

So what was THIS all about…?

"Melissa?"

Melissa looked at her while the other golems remained still. "Yes, Mistress?"

"What were you built for?"

The golem seemed to think about it for a moment before she smiled. "I was constructed to provide intimate companionship for my mistress or master."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"You're a bloody _sex doll_?!" a blushing Millicent demanded.

"Yes, Mistress." Melissa then gave her a look that — if the unreality of the situation hadn't been so damned distracting — would have made the lonely farmer's knees weaken and various parts of her body heat up. "Would you desire me to demonstrate?"

A rapid shake of the head as Millicent waved her hands in denial. "N-no! That's not necessary!" she sputtered out as Nippy — who had assumed a protective stance close to his mistress — tried not to laugh at the sight of the farmer acting so flustered. She then took a deep breath before scratching the back of her head…and then her eyes widened. "Oh, bugger! I'm an idiot!" Walking over to her entertainment set, she tapped controls to bring up an image. "Melissa, was this the man who woke you up and had you come here to see me?" she asked as she indicated the picture there.

Melissa looked at the image before she nodded. "Yes, he is the one, Mistress."

"Girls, was that the same for all of you?"

The other golems looked over before nodding. "Yes, Mistress," they chanted as one.

Millicent blinked a couple times before she sighed. "Okay, this is way over my head," she muttered. "Nippy, go up to Glencorse Manor. Ask one of the Black Maidens if I can get someone who might be an expert on golems to come visit me right away. Tell them what just happened and what I just did, alright? Wait there for a reply!"

Nippy nodded. "Yes, Mistress Millie!" _Pop!_

Once he had gone, the farmer then sighed as she walked over to where she had been sitting to finish her tea. She then blinked on noting that all six of the golems she had just claimed via blood bond had kept their eyes locked on her as she moved, which made Millicent blush again before she took a deep breath as she considered what she had just confirmed. Theodore Nott had woken six beautiful female golems and sent same to her house. Said golems were built as intimate companions. Millicent had been able to claim all six with a simple blood bond ritual. None of them appeared to have any sort of dark magic upon them, either from a vampire or any magical. Reason why…?

Unknown.

Gazing once more on Melissa, the farmer then blushed on seeing the inviting stare on the dark-skinned woman's face, which hadn't gone away since Millicent had asked her about why she had been created. Noting that the other girls weren't acting that way, she then asked, "Are all of you girls built for the same reason Melissa was?"

Instantly, their faces lit up like suns. "Yes, Mistress!"

And then came a chorus of sultry looks. "We're fully functional in all respects, Mistress," Tamara coyly teased as she winked at her.

"And we were built with no prejudices whatsoever," Nike purred.

Brittany gently tossed her head around. "We even have functions that would allow us to simulate a male lover if that's what you desire, Mistress?"

THAT made Millicent gape. "You're _hermaphrodites_?!" she exclaimed.

"If you desire it, we can become same," Lea stated.

"Would you like a demonstration?" Stephanie offered.

That made the farmer blink for a second before she gave them a knowing look. "How human can you girls act?" she then demanded.

"As human as you'd want!" they all chanted as one, grins crossing their faces.

Millicent shook her head. _Merlin! This is years ahead of anything Mummy ever thought she could make!_ she exclaimed to herself before taking a deep breath. "Do it!"

They blinked before they relaxed as they began to move with simon-pure human fluidity. They then walked around the table to gather around their new mistress. "Now, Millie…you strike me as a very lonely lady," Melissa gently teased as she reached up to pass her fingertips over the farmer's cheek. "Are you SURE you won't take us to bed?"

"We can keep you very warm at nights," Tamara cooed as she did the same thing on Millicent's other cheek while Lea and Stephanie warmly embraced the farmer from behind while Nike and Brittany moved to embrace Melissa and Tamara respectively.

"Or would you prefer a wonderful floor show?" Nike added.

Millicent blinked several times as she tried not to gape in shock on feeling those warm — and _human_ warm at that! — hands on her cheeks…and that didn't count the softness of Lea's and Stephanie's hair brushing up against her own, not to mention two pairs of hard points pressing into her shoulder blades and the backs of her arms. As the golems giggled with delight, the farmer tried not to moan out. _Bloody buggering hell! Who on Earth made these girls?! Why were they made?! If Theo was behind all this, I sure as hell wouldn't have expected THIS from him, especially…!_

_Pop!_ "Mistress! Nippy is…!" The elf then gasped. "Ah! Nippy is sorry!"

"Do not worry about your mistress being comforted like that, _mein Herr_," a strange voice stated, making Millicent look over to see an amused Linn Heinrich — in combat uniform with a pullover sweater in lieu of the standard camouflage top, though said sweater did have epaulettes at her shoulders, the slip-ons over them bearing the silver wreathed pip star of a German Army major — gazing on her with an amused smile on her face. As Nippy sputtered on being called "my lord" in German, she then walked over to gaze intently at the golems now surrounding her host, they looking at her in turn with friendly smiles. "Oh, my! You've done us a wonderful favour, _Frau_ Bulstrode." The chief interrogator then gazed intently at her. "You did the blood bond with them?"

"My mother was studying to create golems when I was a kid," Millicent stated. "She used a lot of the notes Rabbi Loew's friend left behind. The whole thing got kiboshed by the Wizengamot since Mum was a normal-born, but I still have her notes."

Linn nodded. "Well, as I'm sure you now realize, these ladies are built for all forms of carnal congress," she calmly stated, adjusting her glasses. As Millicent sputtered at such an embarrassing statement like that, the native of Northeim added, "I don't recognize them from _Projekt Killer-Puppe_, a special addition to _Unternehmen Werwolf_ created by the SS near the end of the war with the support of technomancers based out of my old school. And they're not any of the prototypes my friends and I constructed as intimate companions for us while we were out in the field and needed a little relief from the horrors of war." As Millicent gave her a surprised look, Linn shrugged as her eyebrow arched. "If you were fighting and need a little — how's that term go, again…ah! Stress relief! — would you remember to cast the proper contraceptive charms?"

The farmer nodded. "Good point."

"Are you our creator, _Frau Major_?" Melanie asked with a touch of hope in her voice.

The Lower Saxon combat witch shook her head. "_Nein_, _meine Dame_. I created thirty prototypes as part of our version of the Borghild Project, but — save for a half-dozen I modelled on friends from my old gymnasium who were killed by magical partisans just after the fun in the East started in 1941 — all were men. None of you are them."

"So who did build us?" Lea asked.

"That, we will find out," Linn promised as she drew her wand. "If you wouldn't mind, _Frau_ Bulstrode, I want to do a quick diagnostic charm on one of your new friends."

"Tamara," Millicent bade.

Tamara nodded as she pulled away from Millicent and Brittany, moving to relax herself close to the farmer's work desk. Linn then whispered, "_Schlafen Galatea_," which made the golem's eyes go wide for a second before her head drooped, her body locking up. "Well, well, well…" she whispered before casting some charms over the unmoving woman. After a parchment appeared before her, she nodded, calling out, "_Aufwachen Galatea_," which made Tamara jolt before her eyes opened and she looked around.

"They're copies of what your people made," Millicent mused.

"Ja," Linn stated. "Exact copies in fact. Which means that someone got to someone who knew about this whole thing, then learned how to replicate what we created."

"Who could that be?" Lea asked.

"That, _meine Dame_, we will find out."

"Well, I can help," Millicent offered. "Turns out that the person who sent these girls to me is an old classmate of mine from Hogwarts, Theodore Nott. I noticed that his name wasn't mentioned in the attacks your friends intercepted earlier tonight."

That made Linn's eyebrow arch. "_Herr_ Nott, eh?" she purred out. "How interesting." She then sighed. "Well, if I can prevail on _Herr_ Nippy here to get me back up to my house, I'll leave you be with your friends. My thanks for your help in revealing this to us, _Frau_ Bulstrode. I wish you a very pleasant good evening."

Millicent nodded. "Take her back, Nippy."

"Yes, Mistress!" And with a _pop!_, both Nippy and Linn were off.

Once they were alone, all the golems gazed expectantly on their new mistress. "Now, Millie…what say we go to a nice, quiet place?" Melissa teased.

That made the farmer's cheeks turn a vibrant red…

* * *

Near Combe Wood in Ottery Saint Catchpole (eighteen kilometres northeast of Exmouth), Thursday 22 July, after dawn…

"Good morning, my little moonbeam!"

A moan escaped the sleeping figure under the covers of the bed before they were pushed back to reveal the still-damp face of one Luna Lovegood. On seeing her daughter so distressed, Xenophilius Lovegood tensed. "Luna! What's wrong?!"

Sniffing, his daughter sighed as she sat up, pulling out a slip of paper from under the covers. Xenophilius took it in hand and opened it to see the two kanji there:

**城岩**

He hummed. "'Chénglǐng' or 'Chéng'yán' in Mandarin. 'Sŏng'am' in Korean. And quite a number of terms in Japanese depending on the reading," he said in a calm voice, which would have sounded strange coming from the publisher of the _Quibbler_ — a man known for being quite odd in his outlook on life — to other ears. "'Castle rock' in English."

"'Shiroiwa,'" she stated. "I finally figured out who the Vinur Drekar is."

That made him gape…before he relaxed himself. "Bad?"

"_Battle Royale_," Luna flatly stated. "I told you about Moroboshi Ataru's favourite manga series. The Vinur Drekar is most likely Inada Mizuho, Papa. Not just a replica of her as the Niphentaxians were want to do before the Lady Negako and her friends freed Rose's adopted people from slavery. But the _**real girl**_!" Slipping out of bed, she walked over to her desk to tap on her dataPADD — a personal present from Mun Aesup; even if the Korean-Briton technomancer normally scared Luna with the mad passion she always brought to her work, she had been the one who had rescued the younger woman from Azkaban before she blew the prison apart with a mesonium bomb in 1997 — and bring up an image. "Somehow, her soul was transmitted from the moment she was shot dead by her classmate Kiriyama Kazuo on Oki-shima…and allowed to become an Avalonian on the very day of the Liberation, most likely to make her a sex slave to whoever wanted a replica of such a woman to serve him or her. Look at this," she then bade.

He came over to gaze on the picture there before his jaw dropped. "Merlin! It's almost an exact likeness! Is this from the manga series?"

"Yes. I think that staff of hers was involved in her rebirth. And the rebirth of all the other girls in her old class. Uncle Dung told me yesterday that he had met twenty other girls who were dressed like the Vinur Drekar when she saved his life back in March after she encountered the pups of the Wild Hunt; that was just after she saved Catherine Fleming's life at Hogwarts, then went off to deal with those dragon poachers in Wales. Mizuho's class had forty-two people in it, twenty-one being boys." At his nod, Luna sighed. "Which then explains the whole reason all of her friends have elected to remain in hiding. After being made to KILL each other…!"

He winced. Xenophilius had read the manga series after Luna reported to him what she had learned from Henrietta Croce on _Haida_ a week before concerning Ataru's favouring of _Battle Royale_, just after the Task Force came back from Yaminokuni. Stunned to note the parallels between what those kids had gone through and what Harry Potter and his friends had endured while at Hogwarts, he could only shake his head at the _**miracle**_ that had probably happened when the Vinur Drekar — Inada Mizuho — had seized control of the staff she now possessed and used it to keep her classmates safe. "She was reported to be schizophrenic and delusional," he noted. "No doubt, when she was exposed to that staff, it shocked her back into a fully competent mode of thinking." He then gazed on his child. "What of her friends? Especially girls like Sōma Mitsuko?"

Luna breathed out. "I don't know," she whispered. "But — if their paranoia over being discovered, then being sent back to their place of origin factors into it — they would clearly NOT want to head back to the Greater East Asia Republic. After all, they were condemned to die in _The Program_, Papa. How would you feel if — at THAT young an age — you were told that all the civilized things you were taught were right and proper were being cast aside…with your only option being either to kill or die? Wasn't that the tag line of the _Battle Royale_ movie? 'Could you kill your best friend?'"

He winced again. "And she will soon form a soul-bond with Ataru…"

"And Mizuho is his favourite manga character," she finished. "He knows now."

That made his eyes go wide for a moment. "How did he react?"

"I haven't asked him yet. We've been a little busy over here," she quipped.

That made him wryly chuckle…before a knocking sound echoed from the main door. Xenophilius blinked as he mentally linked into the house's wards before smiling. "Come in, Molly!" he called out through the open window. "The door's open!"

The muffled sounds of a door opening and closing echoed from the ground floor of the Rookery. "Xeno?! Luna?! Are you both up?!" Molly Weasley called up.

"Luna just got up!" the patriarch of the Lovegoods called back as he stepped out of his daughter's bedroom…then, as Molly shook her head in veiled amusement, he grasped a fireman's pole that had been installed in the middle of the building and slid down to the ground floor. "To the Batcave!" he called out, which made the matriarch of the Weasleys laugh in delight, clapping her hands. "What's the problem, Molly?"

She sighed. "Best come see it yourself, Xeno," she bade, beckoning him with a finger.

He followed her outside…

…before he found himself face-to-face with a young woman about his daughter's age standing statue-still about a metre away from his front steps! "Oh, hello! I'm sorry about that, my dear!" he apologized…before blinking on noting there was simply no movement at all from this person, much less the five other women — all dressed in quite fashionable normal clothes with jeans and trainers — standing with her. "Um…?" he began, gazing helpfully at Molly. "Did someone raid a department store?"

"We don't know," she confessed as the sound of Luna sliding down the pole echoed from inside. "There are a half-dozen of these things in front of the Burrow, not to mention a half-dozen in front of Stoatshead Hall and a half-dozen more in front of the Waterfall!" Those last places were the ancestral homes of the Diggory and Fawcett families. "All girls in normal clothing. Insanely pretty ones at that, but…"

"Father, what are these golems doing standing in front of our house?"

Molly gasped as she stared wide-eyed at Luna. "_**GOLEMS?!**_"

Xenophilius' daughter nodded as she came down the stairs to gaze intently at the beings now standing on her front lawn. After a moment, she reached up to gently thread her fingers through the long auburn hair of their leader, a very pretty girl with deep blue eyes. "My, they're beautiful! I thought that story about the Schwarze Mädchen making love dolls to ensure they didn't spend nights alone was just a silly rumour!"

Molly's cheeks flustered. "_**LOVE DOLLS?!**_" she exclaimed. "What sort of…?!"

"Calm down!" Xenophilius cut her off. "Think about it! Elizabeth and her friends may have been the best magical soldiers to live outside Admiral Thompkins, Generalissima Yomigawa and Marshal Múromeca…but they were all young women with needs!"

"When did you hear this, Luna?"

People turned as Arthur Weasley came up. "I interviewed Marshal Múromeca for the _Quibbler_ after we met her at Sirius' will-reading back in 1996, Mister Weasley," Luna replied. "She told me that as the soldiers of the Moscow Magical Front finished clearing the mess they made at Greifinswald, they found a group of German technomancers who had quite thorough obliviations done to them. After the marshal's interrogators got done restoring those fellows' memories, they learned of Project Killer Doll and what led to it." As the older Weasleys gaped at her, she smiled. "It was originally meant as a way for lonely girls to spend time in the arms of a caring lover without risking getting pregnant or dealing with venereal diseases; after enduring a life-threatening battle, would they remember to use contraceptive charms?" As Molly nodded in understanding, Luna added, "The SS got hold of the idea and decided to make them war golems as part of their Operation: Werewolf…but after Mister Hitler finally and kindly killed himself, Linn Heinrich and her friends went to shut it down to make sure the Allied soldiers didn't have to deal with them now that peace had come."

"I know," Arthur breathed out. "Turns out that many of the vampires involved in last night's fun were actually disembodied, their souls anchored to this existence via some type of horcruxi…but are now forced to possess war golems taken from the dungeons of the Trischen Academy where Major Heinrich and her friends hid them after Hitler died. With the amount of vampires killed in Diagon yesterday before lunch added to those killed last night and on Tuesday at Nurmengard — if those who tried to attack the Black Maidens were in the same situation — about forty percent are now accounted for." He then stared at the girls "invading" the Lovegood property. "These girls aren't SS. Millicent Bulstrode caught onto it late last night when she found a half-dozen of them standing outside the gates of her farm near London, then called down Major Heinrich to come look them over. Since her mother wanted to create worker golems to help out on the family farms when Millicent was a baby, she knew what to do with them."

"Blood bond?" Xenophilius asked.

"Exactly."

Taking that in, he tapped one of his fingers to allow a little blood to come out, then he pressed that into the golem's forehead. She jolted as her eyes blinked before she focused on him, a polite smile crossing her face. "_Guten Morgen_, _mein Herr_. _Mein Name ist Renée_. _Was für ein Service oder Befehl willst du mich führen_?"

"_Guten Morgen_,_ Frau Renée_. _Sprechen Sie Englisch_?" Xenophilius asked in German.

She nodded. "Yes, Master," she replied in that language, a pleased smile crossing her face. "What service or command do you wish me to perform?"

That made Molly gape as Arthur shook his head…

* * *

Glencorse Manor near Edinburgh, just before breakfast…

"If this is a joke, I don't find it amusing."

"I honestly wish it was amusing, _meine Generalmajorin_," Linn Heinrich stated with a tired sigh as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Right now, the count of 'love dolls' that have appeared in front of _Herr_ Nott's potential enemies is nearing a thousand. All the jäger companies in the field are teaching people how to do the blood bonds with them to make sure they don't cause harm, though the curse-breakers will go check them all to make sure they don't have any hidden surprises in them even if the blood bonds are forged. _Freifrau_ Granger has allowed my people to examine the girls sent to her house in Crawley to see what they actually are and get an idea as to who might have created them. We did effectively hand over all the people involved in that project to the Soviets after I sealed my prototypes and the war golem prototypes in the bunker at Trischen. While we hoped they wouldn't have done that, it seems…"

"That our friends from Russia found a way to overcome the obliviations and learned of what the SS had made," Elizabeth Gibbon finished. "So why didn't Svetlána progress the idea further? It would have made an army of troops who would have been totally loyal to the government in Moscow and could have dealt with even low-powered metahumans."

"According to Nadéžda Nikítiča — she's the magical Deputy Chief of Mission for the Russians at their embassy in London; she and _Freifrau_ Granger are good friends — that was the primary reason behind _Generalfeldmarschall_ Múromeca being banished to the Spemát," Linn answered. "She was afraid that with the nuclear weapons the Americans were developing — despite the Soviets developing similar weapons — the Russians would be left at a critical strategic disadvantage. She never cared for the Statute of Secrecy in the first place, especially with the metahumans that appeared prior to the war and with the development of the Steel Angels long before the war started. Since there was no Soviet counter to the projects that _Rittmeister_ von Taserich led…"

"It was a weapons gap that needed to be closed."

"_Ja_."

A knock at the entrance to the reception room made Elizabeth and Linn look to see a weary Hermione Granger there. "'Morning," the normal-born from Crawley said.

"What's wrong, 'Mione?" Elizabeth asked.

A tired breath escaped the other woman. "Svetlána Múromeca is dead."

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"What happened?" Linn wondered.

"According to Nadéžda, she died two months ago while still imprisoned in the Spemát," Hermione answered. "No known cause. There was no autopsy done on the body — as it should have been done with someone like her! — and it was cremated as soon as it was cool. The _Ministérstvo Mágičeskie Del_ decided to sit on the news just in case some idiot somewhere in Eastern Europe decided to launch a campaign of revenge."

"Someone eliminated her," the chief interrogator then surmised, crossing her arms. "Given the sheer power of her magic from what I remember of her, I find it VERY hard to believe she might have died of old age or some disease. Even in the Spemát."

"Agreed," the special adviser to the DMLE said, nodding in turn. "They didn't even do the decent thing and inform her relatives. I just found out that Nadéžda's the marshal's first cousin four times removed! Even if she didn't know the marshal, she had a right to learn of her death! All of magical Russia deserves to know! She's their greatest hero…"

"She's not dead."

Two pairs of eyes locked on Elizabeth as Hermione and Linn gaped while they watched the leader of the Schwarze Mädchen sit up from her chair to gaze outside the window at the bustling activity of her headquarters forces on the lawn of her ancestral home. "How can you say that, Liz?!" Hermione then asked. "They wouldn't lie about that!"

"Oh, I'm sure there was a body to cremate," Elizabeth stated as she gave her new friend a knowing smile. "But I think the soul vacated it long before the heart stopped beating…and was given a new place of residence to ensure she wasn't lost to the Te'a. Did you ever note what was recently erected near the Spemát, 'Mione?"

"What, Elisa?" Linn prompted.

"A village for _**hybrid children**_, Linn."

The others' jaws dropped. "Body-swapping?!" Hermione gasped.

"I think so," Elizabeth noted. "I could be wrong, though. We need it proven…and in such a way that those who DID want Svetlána made room temperature won't realize they missed their mark. Because if this thing with those golems is interconnected…"

"She'll be on her way here," Linn finished. "And if _Herr_ Nott somehow supported this given the number of love dolls that have been found in Britain today…"

"Theo's got a death mark on his head," Hermione finished. "And I doubt Mister Sewell and his brother and sister daywalkers will slow the Bloody She-bear down."

"Especially with Avalonian blood in her now," Elizabeth mused.

The others nodded…

* * *

London, the Waterloo Club, fifteen minutes later…

A gentle knock at the door. "Marshal?"

"_Vxodít'_, _továrišč_!"

The door to the guest room on the upper floor of the veteran's club opened to reveal a smiling Nathaniel Cartier. "Good morning, Marshal. A nice cup of caravan tea for you. Doubt your jailers in the Spemát remembered to serve you this while you were their guest." As he placed the tray on the nightstand beside the bed as Svetlána Müromeca sat up, he winked at her. "Fortunately, we had a nice traditional samovar in storage to use to heat up your tea to make sure it was properly prepared. Cream? Sugar?"

"_Net_," she said with a shake of her head. "Out in the field, we didn't have the luxuries those wonderful people in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps went out of their way to make sure you and yours got…to say anything of what the Americans did when it came to supplying their troops." As he ruefully chuckled, she smirked. "Even in a new body, I found I couldn't tolerate adding even a little sweetener to my tea. _Spasíbo_!" she said as she accepted the tea, which was — as per Russian custom — served in an elegantly cut glass contained within a well-designed silver holder. She was quick to spot the crest on the glass. "Your old regiment, I assume?" she asked.

"And my present regiment, thank God," he said as he sat down at the work desk nearby. "Two battalions in the Territorial Army; I'm the regimental sergeant-major of the First Battalion. Arthur's daughter told me you know that the 46th Tamár Guards Regiment was restored to service to fly those new MiG-37 multiple-role fighters that were unveiled recently at Sokól near the Spemát to aid in the defence of the planet. The Avalonians are doing that all over Earth. Boosting up military capabilities in both the full-time and part-time sphere to ensure that anyone stupid enough to consider invading Earth will know they will have a bloody time of it." He sighed. "Given what might have happened had that Moroboshi lad lost that tag race, it's all for the right reasons."

"Especially these planets close to us that our new comrades are seeking out for places to settle so that we don't damage Father Vólos any more than we already have," she admitted, which made him gape at her. She winked. "I may not accept the idea of the God you worship, my friend, but the folklore and legends of my people run deep."

"As they do here, too. Oh!" He then handed her a folded paper. "_Daily Prophet_."

She nodded her thanks as she took it, then gazed on the headline there before she blinked. "Stupid people!" she hissed. "If Fëdor Méjsonovič was truly behind this, he's going about it the wrong way. This is bound to turn even those of his own class against him in the long term once they find out the truth of his involvement."

"They might already have," he noted. "Hester Selwyn — she destroyed all her attackers as you'll note in the article there — is as traditionalist as they come…and she's now made an alliance with Brigadier Gibbon. Still, her attitudes towards all the changes that have happened since '97 are more than understandable. Her former guardian and cousin was a really nasty piece of work named Dolores Umbridge. She was the headmistress at Hogwarts while my great-granddaughter was doing her fifth year there. You met her, I recall."

That made her eyes go wide. "Hermióna Daniílovna?!"

"Yes. It was after you finished training Harry at Grimmauld Place that I revealed what I really was to her. Beforehand, I didn't want to do anything that might have put my mates at risk from Riddle and his friends. Though…" — an evil smile crossed his face — "…I assure you, Marshal, they would have paid dearly if they decided to try to attack us. We may be a bunch of retired soldiers, but we are soldiers."

She nodded in approval. "Tsukiko Makotovna came to me after it was all done and over with to give me a full briefing on Hárold Jákovič's little summer campaign. It was quite well done. He took his lessons — both from myself and from Tsukiko — to heart and applied them ruthlessly to those swine he was forced to fight because of Álbus Percíval'ovič's mistakes." She sipped her tea. "I was told of that prophecy."

A snort escaped her host. "Ruddy stupid thing in the end. Hermione told me that Dumbledore confessed himself that he had suspicions about Riddle right from the beginning, but didn't act on them whatsoever. If he did, it might have stopped that whole 'Voldemort' nonsense right at the start and spared thousands of lives."

"Over six thousand in the 1970s, _da_?"

He nodded. "Not like the sheer rivers of blood — especially on the normal side of things — you saw spilled back in the Great Patriotic War. But when you deal with an isolated community of roughly eighty thousand people, that's a lot."

She shook her head. "It was a stupid mistake all along."

"What was?"

"The Statute," she admitted before sipping her tea. "Those who are 'pro-muggleborn' as you would have called them here say that if the Statute wasn't passed, the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment would not have occurred. That — to borrow your word for it — is a tonne of horseshit!" As he laughed — it was always good to hear the senior generals cuss like they were normal soldiers instead of "gentlemen"…even if a lot of his fellow club members would find it totally appalling to see someone as high ranked as Svetlána Múromeca speak like some street tramp, especially since she was a _lady_! — she shook her head. "I can understand that you don't care for the cause I supported with my magic for so long, _továrišč_, but some of the things Karl Marx did propose at the start made a world of sense. We are individual beings, but we are social creatures, so it's only natural for us to form societies where we belong. And when we do belong to a society, there are certain obligations and responsibilities we have, especially to those we share that society with. The Statute simply gave magicals the excuse to _**abandon**_ their responsibilities so they could live their idyllic lives!"

"Which they could never have done," he noted. "With the small population — especially in places like Britain; places like China were never really affected by this — they would have inbred themselves into squibs without fresh blood coming in thanks to normal-borns like my great-granddaughter and Harry's mother. Where would their Statute be if that ever happened?" He sat back in his chair. "As long as it's done right and all the checks and balances are in place, socialism has its advantages. That's been proven here with the NHS and how it's run since the Second World War. But we're human beings in the end, Marshal. We all make mistakes, so nothing can be perfect."

She sighed. "_Da_, that's true…"

A knock echoed from the doorway. "Yes?!" Nathaniel called out.

"It's me, Nate!"

"Come in, Arthur!"

The door opened to allow Arthur Nott to come inside. "Good morning, Marshal," the former Special Air Service soldier said with a polite nod of his head. "Just had breakfast with my daughter down in the Cauldron before we'd head over to Saint Pancras to get our train ready for today's runs to Paris. Nadéžda Nikítiča — she's the senior magical at the embassy on Kensington Palace Gardens — was having an early breakfast and waiting for your great-granddaughter, Nate." To Svetlána. "Heather touched her and found out that the folks at the MMD in Russia believe you're DEAD, Marshal!"

She blinked before a laugh escaped her, which made both men gape. After a moment, she slapped her knee before finishing her tea. "Oh, those wonderful little children!" she declared as she set the cup aside. "God! There's been a village of hybrid children sitting next to the Spemát since March! It's been known that many of the children in that village came to visit the old _bábuška koldún'ja_ who's been imprisoned at the Spemát since two years after Iósif Vissariónovič passed away…and had visited her every day since the village was built! And you would THINK that someone inside the prison or in the MMD might have thought 'Wait! Could they have done a body-swap?!'"

"But you said that it was some of the guards — all staleblood fools whose relatives you liquidated back in the 1920s and 1930s — who tried to kill you!" Nathaniel protested.

"_Da_, that's true…" Here, she raised her hand to wriggle her fingers. "But a little memory-modification goes a very long way, my friends." As both British veterans smirked in understanding, she took a deep breath. "Ah, let it be for a while. I don't like hurting Hermióna. She's a good child underneath it all. But it's necessary."

"I've already arranged for your ticket to get out to Barnstaple; that's the closest rail stop to the Isle of Lundy," Arthur stated. "You'll go from Platform Eleven at Waterloo down to Exeter Saint Davids at 9:20. Once you're there, you transfer to the train for Barnstaple on Platform Three at Saint Davids; you should finally get there a little after half past two. Once you're in Barnstaple, you can apparate onto Lundy; distance is about thirty-three kilometres as the crow flies. The old house is up by the northeast end, wedged into the side of a small mountain. You can't miss it."

"_Spasíbo_!"

* * *

The Isle of Lundy, that moment…

"**_NOTT!_**"

Theodore Nott yelped on hearing that screaming voice, then turned…

…before his whole face exploded in pain!

"**SCHWEINHUND****_! WHAT IN GOD'S NAME POSSESSED YOU TO DO SOMETHING SO STUPID?!_**"

Watching Cathrin Vogt rail away at their current host — who nearly had his nose crushed by her fist; the woman had a wicked rabbit punch — Adam Sewell tried not to smirk too much as he sipped his tea. The millennia-old vampire — now forced thanks to what Abraham Lincoln had done to him in 1863 to make use of one of those wonderful combat golems that had been built by the Schutzstaffel near the end of the Second World War in Europe to make war on the Allies behind the lines; prior to acquiring his current body, he had been forced to possess other vampires or normal people to stay active — had, on first meeting the lovely redhead with the forest green eyes, come to like the native of Dresden. She had an inventive genius that was staggering to behold at times, a strong personal will and a complete amoral attitude when it came to the normal cattle.

She was the second child of Professor Johannes Vogt, a former runes teacher at Trischen who helped Linn Heinrich and her friends in the Schwarze Mädchen create the love dolls — "intimate gynoids" as they were called back then; it was the first ever use of such a term long before it became commonplace amongst technosexuals and those who were fans of science fiction — as part of the magical version of the Borghild Project. Vogt — a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War and World War One — was a normal-born who supported the Nazis from the beginning. He had, even while teaching at Trischen, born witness to the chaos that rocked Germany in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles and its grossly unfair clauses that put the onus of war guilt on the Fatherland — which was the worst form of hypocrisy given that the leaders of ALL the belligerent powers save the United States had welcomed the coming of the war in 1914; the reason Germany got slammed with war guilt was that the other powers needed help in paying the bills — and knew there had to be a strong hand to guide the country to a better tomorrow. While Cathrin and her brother Karl — he was here at Lundy Keep, as were their small troupe of assistants — weren't Nazis by any stretch of the imagination, they believed in the Nietzschean philosophy of the Übermensch. Thanks to their past association with Josef von Taserich, they knew of the horrid chaos that constantly rocked the planet Yiziba — the source point of all mesonium in the universe, including the elements of that horrid material in the blood of all the Space Angels — and didn't want to see such rock Earth; they had joined Adam Sewell and his group in alliance to find some way to either permanently remove the Avalonians from the equation or at least constrict them.

A _**metahuman revolution**_ akin to Yiziba's catastrophic "Dawn of Power" two millennia ago was something NO sane man or woman would EVER wanted to see happen here.

It had to be stopped.

And it would be…

…as soon as certain other supporters learned their proper place in things.

"Indeed, I must also question what possessed you to do such a thing, _Herr_ Nott," a cultured man's voice echoed from nearby, making Adam and his sister Valdoma — who were constantly accompanied by their close friend, Halbert Golden; he was the man who had ensured the living spirits of the Sewell siblings were taken away from North America in the face of the Rail-Splitter's terrifying rampage after the Civil War — look over to see a handsome man dressed like a scientist in relaxed clothing with a white smock standing at the doorway leading to the dungeons, which had been converted into work laboratories for the Vogt siblings. As the vampires smirked on hearing Karl's use of the basic honorific "_herr_" in lieu of the more proper "_burggraf_," the elder child of Johannes Vogt added, "Do you realize you've set us back _**months**_ with what you did?"

"You said they were ready!" Theodore snapped.

"They were ready _**to be programmed**_ to serve as war golems, you idiot!" Cathrin snapped; she always had the sharper tongue of the children of Johannes Vogt. "_Mein Gott_! Are all you purebloods in this _verdammt_ country so short-sighted?! It's no wonder that _Markgraf_ Potter was able to put you all down thirteen years ago!" As Theodore snarled on hearing that, she grinned. "Or did you forget that Harry holds a _**Life Debt**_ over your head, Theodore?! Just like he does over Draco and Gregory!" Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she barbed, "Utterly _Slytherin_ of the fellow, I would say!"

As Theodore sputtered in outrage, Adam sighed. "Karl, how bad is it?"

"We would have to start right from the beginning, Adam," Karl responded as Cathrin came over to stand next to him. "All of the new series of golems were sent off by our host to attack other people while your people tried to ensure our allies didn't reveal what we've been planning all along. A minimum of three months before new golems can be finished. Which means that you and yours will have to conserve your strength and hold off until you attack Azkaban tomorrow given last night's losses. I sent Antonia to get this morning's copy of the _Daily Prophet_ to learn how badly we've been exposed."

The millennia-old daywalker nodded in thanks. He was used to this sort of thing in the end. War — the ultimate form of all human endeavours — had haunted mankind since the competition over resources began long before Adam himself had been born with the power of magic, then was attacked by a demon-possessed vampire to become one of the first of the hunters of the night to maintain his soul after being turned. He knew from the day he decided it was time for vampires to have their own nation and threw their support behind the secessionists in the United States that such a path ran huge risks…though he never realized the full scale of those risks until shortly after the American Civil War effectively ended at Appomattox Court House when still-corporal friends of his told him of how almost all the magicals of the land had rose up _en masse_ to support and preserve the Union, even those from the states of the would-be Confederacy!

He then shuddered as he remembered witnessing what happened shortly afterwards…

At a meeting of the original Ku Klux Klan in 1865 in Tennessee, veterans of the armies of the Confederacy who were in on the secret of vampires had asked Adam if it was possible for the hunters of the night to help them "_keep up the skeer_" — as the famous rebel cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest would have said it — and make sure the former slaves and their abolitionist supporters could never gain power in their home states. As that agreement was made, the door of the meeting hall exploded inward to reveal a ghost in funeral black, armed with a _**very**_ familiar woodsman's axe.

In a show of that homespun humour he was famous for — tinged with a bowel-loosening madness Adam had seen many times before whenever he had the misfortune to encounter people who had been "experimented" on by a being far older than he — Abraham Lincoln calmly said, "_Ladies and gentlemen, a question: Are you patriots or vampires?_"

Then — as the normal Klansmen all soiled themselves on realizing that the monster who had ordered their home states to be conquered and laid waste in support of the darkies had survived being _shot in the head_ to continue his brutal war against the South — the Kentucky-born lawyer lunged in to rip the vampires apart, demonstrating ungodly speed and a frightful command of psychokinesis which showed that he HAD been saved by Josef von Taserich from falling victim to John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre, which was something that Adam and his allies clearly did NOT want to deal with.

The **_Score and Four_** had begun…

…which forced all the vampires in North America, even those possessed by demons, to learn — much that almost all of them would have wished not to comprehend such — that there _were_ worse monsters than even the Old Ones themselves loose on Earth.

And when the Rail-Splitter proved himself even MORE powerful than a Slayer when he swept into Cleveland in 1874 and was mistaken for a demon…

…the smarter vampires — even the traitorous ones like Henry Sturges, the man who had taught Lincoln how to be a destroyer of the undead — quickly vanished from the continent, hoping beyond hope that the black-clad hunter would not come after them elsewhere on Earth before the madness the ebony mesonium in his blood inflicted on him finally saw him mercy-killed at the business end of an Immortal's sword.

That never happened thanks to Dean Raeburn in 1889.

And while Lincoln had regained his sanity thanks to that woman…

…his own total metahuman power had not dropped a single iota.

Thus — while reconciling with more "kinder" vampires like his own teacher and adviser — the Rail-Splitter eventually stopped being a full-time hunter and faded into the night, allowing the Slayers to once more become the prime destroyers of the undead.

But he was still out there, Adam Sewell knew.

Waiting like a patient cat sitting on a beam above the floor of a barn for a mouse to appear, then lashing out to catch his prey when opportunity presented itself.

"We'll have to move fast," Valdoma warned.

Karl looked over. "What do you mean, Valdoma?"

"Once the news of our friends' deaths gets across the Atlantic, Lincoln will be on his way here, Karl," the pretty blonde vampire warned as she sipped her own tea. Hearing a snort from her current host — who had managed to repair his face with a healing charm — Valdoma's eyes narrowed. "Don't dismiss him because he's a 'muggle,' Mister Nott," she coldly warned. "He swats away Killing Curses like they were annoying gnats trying to bite him. Your late patron's predecessor, Lord Chaucer, learned that the HARD way in the 1890s when he asked for our assistance in helping conquer the Ministry of Magic." As the wizard's face paled at the idea of someone — and a _**muggle**_ at that! — actually defying the most powerful magical spell ever created, she smirked. "Don't look so surprised, Theodore. Lincoln's blood is flooded with _mesonium_! The 'atom of true life' as it's also known! The Killing Curse unleashes unnatural death, which mesonium could fight with ease, even in diamond format. Didn't you see that with Miss Potter and her friends from Meridiana when they hunted Voldemort and his friends?"

Theodore shuddered as he recalled the events of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower. The knee-buckling, bowel-loosening horror he felt on seeing his father's gallant friends — who banded together in fear for the future of wizarding Britain so they could remove the filth from Hogwarts — being laid low by the Defence Association and elements of the Order of the Phoenix, joined for the occasion by Harry Potter's mysterious sister and five others from Meridiana…including a woman claiming to be the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange herself! Mason Nott found himself duelling the "Girl-Who-Lived" — as the local press had come to call Rose Potter — and found himself hard-pressed to get past the flame-haired half-blood's hurricane of spells. Horrified on realizing that his father might be captured — and most likely sent to _**That Place**_ since Rose's brother had made it clear that he didn't trust the Ministry to do the right thing, which would force him to appeal to the Queen to get hold of a certain set of keys — Theodore levelled his wand on Rose and barked out the incantation of the Killing Curse.

Said curse looked as if it would strike her down…until an opaque silver sphere appeared around Rose to deflect that green bolt of energy into the ceiling!

As Theodore gaped in horror on realizing that the muggle loving monsters from Meridiana who had allied to Harry Potter had the power to resist _anything_ Voldemort and his allies could throw at them, Rose gave him an annoyed look…then wandlessly banished Mason's son into a stone wall, knocking him out for the night.

"Merlin…" he moaned out.

"I'm back!"

Heads turned as a pretty woman with wavy dark brown hair that went down to mid-shoulder and nearly black eyes peeking out of a well-formed face came into the room. Like all of Karl's and Cathrin's other assistants, Antonia Kreuz was dressed in normal clothes, including form-fitting jeans, button shirt and pullover sweater. While Theodore didn't really care for normal fashions, he couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at her and the other assistants whenever he saw them. Then again, he was young and single; he needed to worry about seeking out a wife…so he would be attracted to such beauty.

"What did you learn, Toni?" Cathrin asked.

The newcomer held up the morning's _Daily Prophet_. "No word on last night's idiocy," she said as she gave Theodore a disgusted look, which made him shudder. "We've lost every local ally save possibly for Camellia Matthews, though Achelois Runcorn — who was transformed into an Avalonian yesterday around lunch — is going to persuade her to undergo a body-swap as soon as possible. Raven Malfoy finally used the Praeda Bellica to depose her brother and become _Markgräfin_ of Cumbria." As Theodore croaked out in horror on hearing that, she added, "All the other lords and ladies we've solicited for assistance are either dead or sent off to Gonebren save for _Friefrau_ Hester Selwyn, who's jumped the fence and allied herself with _Burggräfin_ Elizabeth Gibbon."

"WHAT?!" Theodore thundered. "I'll kill that blood-traitor for that!"

As he stormed off to his own quarters cursing all the way, the others rolled their eyes in disgusted amusement. "_Herr_ Sewell, I ask this again: Why must we deal with these _leicheblut schweinhunde_ in the first place?" Antonia hissed as she handed the paper to him. "Their arrogance and their inability to listen to reason is dragging us down!"

"A necessary evil, my dear," Adam calmly stated as he gave her an amused look; ever since he had been first invited into Lundy Keep after the shocking news of Spike's and Drusilla's "return to the light" months ago, he had used his own magic to subvert the internal defences of this place to ensure that Theodore could not listen to things he couldn't understand or comprehend. _Mortals are so useful…yet keeping them loyal is SO aggravating_, he mused to himself. "While the majority of the people in Britain are neutral towards vampires like us, they would never allow us to escape from under their 'benign supervision'; their annoying agreement with the Watcher's Council would have us facing Slayers if that happened, especially in the wake of what Willow Rosenburg did before the destruction of Sunnydale. I don't WANT to think of what they'd do if they learned the truth of people like yourself." He shook his head as he moved to finish his tea. "But don't worry about it, my dear. Once I use the magic within the prisoners of Azkaban to give me a real body again so I don't need to 'borrow' the one I have now…" — that he was possessing one of the war golems that had been built for _Unternehmen Werwolf_ had been kept top secret from Theodore and his allies; European wizarding prejudice towards such beings was as vile in places as the Nazis' hatred of the Jews! — "…we can finally deal with such people." A smirk then crossed his face. "Who knows? Maybe their enemies might thank us for that."

Snickers echoed through the room on hearing that, then Karl gave Antonia a nod. She moved to join the Vogt siblings to head downstairs to the dungeons, which had been rebuilt over the last three months to serve as a construction laboratory in creating golems. Once they were in the well-lit space, Antonia made a gesture with her hand to activate the special defences the golems had placed here to ensure they wouldn't be disturbed, even by the vampires. Not that the blood-suckers would ever come down here; given that most of them were borrowing golem bodies to give them physical forms until Adam could give them new bodies — which revolted all of them — the idea of entering such an "unnatural" place scared them as bad as the Rail-Splitter and the Slayers!

Which struck the golems created by Johannes Vogt as totally hypocritical.

Vampires — by their very nature — were the epitome of "unnaturalness!"

"How long do we have to keep this up, Karl?" she then snarled as she sat down at the central work table, gazing on the empty human-sized moulds where new golems had been created. "It's bad enough we have to deal with the idiots Elizabeth and her friends fought to destroy during the war, but to deal with rebellious _vampires_ as well?"

Karl chuckled. "As Adam himself just said, Toni, it is a necessary evil," he said as his own green eyes twinkled with amusement. As the other women — Karl Vogt was the only male-form golem of their group — snickered with amusement on hearing that, he added, "This threat against our fully-organic 'cousins' was coming one way or another. Something as so life-changing as what the Avalonians brought to the organic Terrans was bound to make someone upset sooner or later. The logical approach to the situation was to ally with a group planning to do the Avalonians harm, learn their plans, then expose it to the right authorities. Sadly, given the nature of this situation…"

"The only truly trustworthy authority is _Frau_ Inada," Agnes Wilhelms, who served as Karl's primary laboratory assistant, mused as a smile crossed her face.

Karl nodded. It would probably scare the hell out of the other Shiroiwa girls who had been brought across the dimensional veil and ahead ten years in time thanks to the Niphentaxians that the golems now at Lundy Keep knew of their existence. It had been quite logical to determine in the end. A group of twenty-one Japanese girls who appeared to be third-year middle school students — in Germany, they would be in the _Obertertia_ year at a gymnasium — and dressed in proper sailor suit-type uniforms while out in public; as they normally visited magical enclaves, people wouldn't blink twice on seeing such uniforms. All of whom spoke with Sanuki-Shikoku accents, indicating they were from the northeast area of the smallest of the Home Islands. All of whom had haunted auras around them which indicated they had a VERY close encounter with death in a most unnatural way, thus hinting that they had been in combat or had been caught in the heart of a terrible natural disaster…but given their skills with Lawgiver pistols and Peacemaker rifles, the former was most likely. One such girl — that was Sōma Mitsuko, the golems eventually concluded — of the group just OOZED sex appeal from every pore of her body…and carried a wicked kama scythe with her.

And another girl — the possessor of an incredible ancient Sagussan weapon whose power was simply overwhelming; Karl believed this woman's "friend" was one of the dreaded _haijo-ju_, doomsday weapons whose existence had trumpeted the final fall of the Fourth Republic in the War of Clone Rights — that spoke with a classical tone of voice…

…and was a devout Zoroastrian.

That particular religion had NEVER made it to Japan.

Atop that, the Niphentaxians had been in the habit of creating Avalonian replicas of both fictional and real people — especially characters from Japanese anime and manga series — ever since they discovered the bioroid factory a century ago.

But in the case of these girls, they weren't just "Terran-form Avalonians" whose souls were created by the inner power of the bioroid factory…

…but "Terran-turned-Avalonians," girls who had been born naturally as Terrans, but somehow were forced to become one of the bioroid race.

With that — and knowing that what was seen as _fact_ in one universe could be _**fiction**_ in another; it was because of that situation that ALL magical ministries on Earth had long outlawed studies in inter-dimensional travel — all factored in, the conclusion was quite easy to make…especially when mixed with a thorough search of the Internet to reveal the only _fictional_ ethnic Japanese character who worshipped Ahura Mazdā.

The Friend of Dragons was _**Inada Mizuho**_.

And if there was anyone who could realistically put a stop to this — and ensure the golems would survive; those few Avalonians who had met Karl, Cathrin and their friends had simply accepted them as sentient beings without blinking, as had Mizuho when she had first encountered Cathrin and her sisters back in mid-June — it was _**her**_.

"Gretchen?"

The physically smallest of the golems in the room, a petite woman with stylishly short-cut dirty blonde hair and dark brown eyes, perked. "_Ja_?" Gretchen Streit asked.

"Go somewhere private where you can contact _Frau_ Inada and tell her what's happened," Karl ordered. "Elle, I want you to go with her to make sure she is not disturbed."

"_Jawohl_," Elle Andreas, a beautiful Latino with typical olive skin, long black hair and dark brown eyes, said with a nod as she and Gretchen stood to leave…

* * *

Level Two of the Headquarters of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic, after breakfast…

"Hello, Harry. Is this a bad time?"

Harry looked up from the dataPADD to gaze upon the smiling man with the greying dark brown hair and knowledgeable grey eyes behind round-frame reading glasses, standing beside a younger man with wavy black hair and hazel eyes. "Rupert! Xander!" he breathed out before rising to take Rupert Giles' hand in his own before shaking Xander Harris' hand. "Thérèse, can you conjure up some tea and coffee for our friends?"

"I feel like a glorified secretary!" Thérèse Peverell muttered before she moved to the small counter close to Harry's work desk where the coffee machine and all the supplies for making tea were located. "Cream and sugar with your breakfast tea, Professor?"

"Please, Lady Peverell," Rupert stated as he took a seat. "And none of that bloody 'professor' stuff! I never even graduated from Oxford, for God's sake!"

The beautiful woman with the Mediterranean tan and the sunflower blonde hair tied in side ponytails smirked. "From what I've read of what you've done with Mistress Summers and the other Slayers over the years since you began the clean-up of the Sunnydale Hellmouth, sir, you deserve that title. Besides, the leader of the Watcher's Council — even if such person was a 'muggle'…" — she made finger-quotes with one hand as she wandlessly prepared his breakfast tea — "…was accorded an honorary chair at both Hogwarts and Meridiana, with the right to advise the DADA chair at Hogwarts on all matters concerning defence against demons and vampires. Of course…"

"The pureblood traditionalists — in their mad desire to remove all 'muggle taint' from wizarding Britain which began many decades before your distant cousin decided to call himself 'Voldemort' — wouldn't ever hear of a _normal_ man or woman come teach that particular subject," Rupert finished with a twinkle in his eye. He had been let in on the secret of Project V right from the beginning as a simple courtesy due to his leading the support group for the nearly eighteen hundred Slayers — no thanks to an incredible spell unleashed by Willow Rosenberg in 2003 in hopes of stopping the so-called "First Evil" from wiping out the "Protectors of Humanity" (as Slayers were often romantically addressed by others) — who stood as a line of defence against all inter-dimensional threats from the Old Ones and the other things that went "bump" in the night.

"Which is a shame," Thérèse stated as she wandlessly floated the tea cup over to the leader of the Watcher's Council. "What's your morning poison, Mister Harris?"

An amused Xander grinned. "Lady Peverell, my friends call me 'Xander,'" he stated as he winked. "Coffee. Double-double as the Canadians say it."

"Two creams, two sugars," Harry translated.

Thérèse smirked. "Okay!"

"My Lady! You shouldn't do that!"

That was a young auror cadet who had been pulled out of the Corps of Law Aurors School for the current emergency, Galea Thruston; she was a pureblood and paternal cousin to the drummer of the Weird Sisters, Orsino Thruston. As she moved to assist, Thérèse held up her hand. "Cadet Thruston, just because I'm blood-descent from Master Salazar doesn't mean I'm going to be as lazy as Tom Riddle was when it comes to work," she stated, which made the young girl — she had graduated from Hogwarts in 2009, Harry knew, alumnus of Gryffindor — wince. "That's part of why he was defeated at the end by Lord Potter and his friends. As soon as he stated getting followers, Tom sat back and let them do all the damned work to launch their 'revolution.' Since I vowed I would never follow Tom's path, I don't intend to gain his bad habits."

"Miss Thruston, would you please attend to your duties," Harry bade.

Galea winced. "Yes, sir!"

She immediately rushed off to the other side of the operations room. Once she was sufficiently clear, Rupert gestured with his hand to create a privacy bubble around them. "You're not having problems with the magical links forming between you and Gonebren, are you?" he asked as he gave the reborn and reformed — _She should bloody hell be reformed!_ the leader of the Watcher's Council mused. _FOUR soulsword strikes and the Spirit-Breaker Fire-Light attack would be considered overkill on even Admiral Thompkins!_ — last living soul fragment of Voldemort in a woman's body a concerned look.

"It's hard, Rupert," Thérèse admitted as she floated the coffee cup over to Xander. "The magic of that place is at the Crown's command, so I couldn't hope to seize it for myself even if I _was_ so inclined to follow my other-self's path. But the calling of that power in my head doesn't stop." She moved to make herself a cup of tea. "It's not so distracting now that I'm bonded to someone, but it's still there."

"Oh? Who's the lucky lady?" Xander asked.

"Myrtle O'Neil."

The visitors from Hampshire — the Watcher's Council and the senior Slayers such as Buffy Summers had decided to base themselves at the academy for those trained to help guide the Protectors of Humanity at a place on the north shore of the Solent ten kilometres south of Southampton — blinked. "Wasn't she a ghost?" Rupert asked.

"Moaning Myrtle," Harry explained, which made both Rupert and Xander nod as Thérèse finished making her tea, then moved to sit beside her friend's desk. "She was Tom's first victim when he discovered the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts back in '43. Her spirit was anchored to this plane thanks to a Life Debt link between herself and Tom, which carried over to Thérèse here after I soulsworded Tom out of existence in '97. The Vinur Drekar discovered that yesterday when she took the Key of Gonebren from my house to give to Elizabeth Gibbon so she could deal with the daywalkers that attacked Diagon, then went to Hogwarts to allow Myrtle's spirit to finally move on. When that happened, the influence of the _nŏksbae_ rituals Tom used to help make his horcruxi allowed her soul to be replicated, then it was placed in an Avalonian body cloned off Myrtle's body. The Vinur Drekar brought her to Grimmauld Place to meet Thérèse…"

"And _marei'cha_ took care of the rest," Thérèse finished, which made the visitors laugh as her cheeks reddened on remembering the blissful night she had spent in her new soul-mate's arms. "Since she's spiritually a Ravenclaw, Myrtle went down to the Department of Mysteries to allow the Unspeakables to look her over. Just like your people, Ian Boot and his subordinates are very interested in the Vinur Drekar and her staff, so they want to see if they can create detection spells which can track her movements."

"Daphne's promised to keep such under very tight controls," Harry added.

Rupert sighed. "It is such a pity that there are people who would question any person who simply acts out of the goodness of her heart and the convictions of her faith," he mused. "However — to quote Willow and Buffy — our dragon-lover friend does command the largest single piece of 'mojo' outside General Raeburn herself. I dare say she could give both Lord Rjazán' and _Rittmeister_ von Taserich a run for their money. Given what she's probably gone through — as Luna has reported in the _Quibbler_ since her first encounter with that girl — can we really trust her with such a device?"

"Any idea what it is?" Harry asked.

"We think it's a _haijo-ju_," Xander stated. "From the odd sketches people have made of it, it looks pretty similar to the fuckin' Mother of All _Haijo-ju_ itself!"

"The Staff of Gihan," Rupert explained. "Created 17,000 years ago by the first Head Scientist of Sagussa when the post was created and that planet began its final downward spiral towards the War of Clone Rights. A poor man's version of a Power Jewel, but — as was reported in the _Prophet_ from witnesses yesterday who saw the Vinur Drekar in Gringotts after that raid in Diagon — one whose core power comes straight from Yiziba. Which means it was touched directly by the First Ones, the Seekers."

"Is that bad?" Thérèse asked.

"Potentially yes," Rupert stated. "The Power Jewels were programmed from the start to seek out orphaned girls who — as General Raeburn endured after her parents and sister were killed by her uncle in 1879 — led very harsh lives before they became Hosts to those devices. Thus, the Hosts would be quite sympathetic to those who suffered as they did. The _haijo-ju_ were never programmed in that manner, which means that anyone who has a strong enough will could potentially claim one of those things." He nodded. "And while the Vinur Drekar seems to be quite a charming young lady — at least, that was the impression I got from her when she rescued Violet Day from drowning back in April — can we be sure she wouldn't follow Willow's path after she lost Tara?"

Harry nodded. Ever since he learned of what the "Scooby Gang" had endured ever since Buffy Summers moved to Sunnydale in the summer of 1997, the Man-Who-Won had been in awe of how one of the longest-lived Slayers on record had endured the many twists and turns Fate threw at her and her friends while they were trying to finish high school, move on to university and live their lives while dealing with a virtual army of demon-possessed vampires, true demons and all the other things living close to a Hellmouth forced on them. Part of that incredible tale had been the story of Willow Rosenburg, a normal woman who discovered how to become an earth witch — such, as per the official ICMC description of those people, were always born as normals…but gained faith in the Old Ways to allow them to tap into the power of Magic even if there was no genetic quirk in their DNA which might have seen people like them invited to places like Hogwarts — and eventually was "seduced by the Dark Side of the Force" (to use the quote from _Star Wars_), driven insane by the loss of her lover Tara Maclay in 2002 to delve into powers not even Voldemort had ever mastered in all his years of studies.

Fortunately for her friends, Willow regained her sanity and used her power to awaken the potential Slayers to bring down the First Evil in the final Battle of Sunnydale a little over a year after Tara's accidental death. In terms of power, Willow rated a respective 268 points on the Neuwied Test, which — according to that test's creator, _Oberunsäglicher_ Johannes Neuwied of the _Abteilung für Mysterien_ in Berlin; Daphne Greengrass suspected he would eventually be promoted to _Stabschef der Unsäglichen_ within a couple years — was at the pinnacle of human magicals who were not augmented or influenced by mesonium (as were the cases of Yomigawa Tsukiko and Heather Thompkins). Personally, Harry liked Willow very much. While most "born" magicals in Britain — those who earned invitations to Hogwarts or Meridiana — would consider people like her to be strange if not a perversion to the "proper" order, the existence of people like Willow had long proved Harry's personal belief that the power of Magic could be inherited by all if the right chance and opportunity presented itself. Also, Willow was frightfully intelligent at Hermione Granger's level, passionately caring and loyal to her friends and always thought outside the box; after all, would any "normal" magical think of using the power of the Scythe — Harry could _never_ pronounce the real name of that thing — to awaken the power of the Slayer in every potential on Earth?

Speaking of which…

"…everyone has undergone this?"

Perking on hearing Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry gazed at Rupert. As the chief of the Watcher's Council dispersed the privacy bubble, footsteps heralded the arrival of the Minister for Magic, now escorting the Elder Slayer — as magical reporters respectfully called Buffy Summers these days — into the DMLE operations room. Naturally, they were accompanied by their senior advisers. Walking behind Kingsley and Buffy were a calm Percy Weasley and a madly-grinning Willow Rosenburg…not to mention a woman who looked like Buffy's own twin sister! Seeing this, Harry blinked in confusion; while it was known that Buffy did have a sister — later discovered to be a living sentient personification of an ancient tool which could open gateways to all known dimensions that was simply called "The Key" — named Dawn, no twin sister was ever mentioned.

"Yeah, we did," Buffy stated with a nod. "It was offered to all of us by the Sunnydale Restoration Committee as a way of helping us better master our own powers and allow them to be passed on to any children we have. Hey, Harry!" she then called out on seeing the director of the DMLE. "I thought you Brits were civilized!" she then scolded. "You had a party with vampires and never invited us! That's rude!"

Harry laughed as he offered his hand, which she took. Instantly, he felt a familiar warm aura surge from that grip, one he had known intimately since he had met his sister Rose in the late spring of 1996. "You're all Avalonians now, Buffy?" he asked as he gestured to make chairs for the new arrivals as Thérèse moved to make tea and coffee.

"Yeah. Ditto with almost all my friends, even Dawn…and she was able to keep the power of the Key after her body-swap," Buffy said as she sat, thumbing Willow. "The Avalonians of Santa Barbara felt it was being neighbourly, especially with all the losses we took while they were forced to watch us without being allowed to help."

"Oh…!"

"Xander!"

Xander perked. "What?!"

Percy gave him a stunned look. "You have both eyes now!"

Everyone groaned at that flat joke save for Buffy's twin, who had a calm look on her face as she assumed a protective stance behind the Elder Slayer. "No shit, Sherlock!" Xander snarled as Thérèse floated a cup of tea to Kingsley before making one for Percy. "Jeez! Your brothers must be going overtime in corrupting you!" He winked at Harry with his regenerated left eye; the original had been lost just before the final destruction of Sunnydale thanks to a servant of the First Evil named Caleb.

"Never noticed," Harry said as he sipped his tea before gazing at Buffy, then her twin. "Buff, I hate to mention this to you, but there are _two_ of you."

Xander and Rupert laughed as Buffy rolled her eyes. "This here used to be the Buffybot," the Elder Slayer explained as she thumbed her twin. As the twin smiled politely at Harry, Buffy added, "The Avalonians rebuilding Sunnydale sensed her spirit was still drifting about in the ruins, so it was pulled into a meson crystal and she got a body cloned from me. We call her 'Anne' now after my middle name."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Harry," Anne said with a bow of her head. "Buffy has told me so much about you and what you've done."

"They also found the spirit of Warren's gynoid girlfriend April and gave her a new body as well," Rupert added. "When April and Anne met, it was love at first sight."

"April-vayae thinks I'm a far better lover than Warren ever was," Anne added with all seriousness, which made her friends smirk at such a lack of tact. "Then again, he abandoned her, never once thinking of reprogramming her to be an independent person. It's really sad at times. I'm very tempted to kill him myself if I ever see him."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Anne," Harry mused before gazing knowingly at Willow. "Wills, did you go autograph-hunting when you found out about the Schwarze Mädchen?"

That made Willow blush as the others laughed. "Do you blame me?!" the earth witch protested. "To actually meet the first group of true magical freedom fighters! How were they saved?! The Avalonians weren't in control of their lives back in 1945!"

"We think it was _Rittmeister_ von Taserich who…"

Thérèse was interrupted by running feet, making people turn as a panting Faith Lehane charged into the room. "Eff! What's wrong?!" Buffy demanded.

The Bostonian took several deep breaths to calm herself before she gazed on her predecessor as the Slayer. "We got a major problem, Bea!" she stated. "All the branches of Wolfram and Hart just went on a war footing about ten minutes ago!"

People paled on hearing that. While the demon-controlled law firm had considerable powers thanks to the Senior Partners, it projected a mask of civilized respectability to the world at large to ensure normal people didn't suspect something off about the organization and those who ran it. However, there had been times in history when the servants of the Wolf, Ram and Hart went to a "war footing." Such times normally struck whenever other demons moved to eliminate the Senior Partners' influence on Earth…though such incidents were actually quite rare, especially with the presence of one Vladímir Rúsalovič Tayčéško on the planet, a man dedicated to keeping inter-dimensional influences on Terrans to a very dull roar. Fortunately for those demons, Lord Rjazán' never intervened unless it was about to go totally south; the Praetorian Guardian of Earth was — thanks to the oaths he had taken after his Test twenty-five millennia ago — constrained from acting openly if there were "normal" people who had the power to deal with such issues. A Slayer was seen as such a "normal" person in those cases.

And while Buffy had often wished that the "old fogey" in Russia would finally get off his butt and come help out in Sunnydale during the times she felt as if she couldn't go on in the wake of the non-stop bloodshed and fighting that was chewing up her high school and college years, she could understand the logic behind what drove the Heirs of the First Guardians, also known as "Praetorians." Akin to the "prime directive" concept from _Star Trek_ that forbade more advanced civilizations from interfering or influencing the development of less advanced cultures, the oaths a man like Vladímir Tayčéško took to become a planetary Praetorian Guardian always demanded he hold off and allow those he protected to develop their own means of dealing with things like gods and demons…which would allow people to develop a faith in themselves and their own strengths as a species, thus turn away from worshipping dieties as a whole.

Because of that, a weird "balance of terror" eventually developed between the First Guardians and those they opposed. If gods and demons went a little too overboard in their efforts to subvert mortals in this dimension, the Heirs of the Praetorians would unleash a can of cosmic whoop-ass on such errant divinities, sending them back to where they belonged with their tails tucked between their legs. That actually had made things somewhat easier in the long term, Buffy would eventually come to realize over time; she sure as hell would have never wanted to live on Earth 25,000 years ago when the Old Ones were running rampant on the planet without anyone around to stop them.

"What made them do that, Faith?" Harry asked.

Faith smirked. "Guess who just came back to Schloss Greifswald?" she asked.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then…

"Oh, fuck!" Xander groaned out.

"Bloody buggering shit!" Harry croaked. "What about Meagan?!"

"According to one minor lawyer at the Berlin branch that was willing to talk to our people, Meagan probably became an Avalonian thanks to the _Rittmeister_," Faith stated, which made everyone gape. "He just came back yesterday afternoon from wherever he's been for sixty-five years. Some vampires and minor demons who were serving the Senior Partners got pissed that Meagan 'escaped' her 'banishment' to Rügen because of what she did for your godfather, then charged over there to put her down. Soon as Theresia's people sensed it, they teleported over to Rügen to stop them from hurting Meagan!"

Buffy blinked before she bolted to her feet. "_**C'MON!**_"

The others quickly moved to follow…

* * *

Schloss Greifswald, minutes later (local time: ninety minutes before lunch)…

"Buffy!"

"Theresia!" Buffy called out after she got clear of Willow's teleportation spell and ran over to join the leader of the Slayers native to central Europe, Theresia Halls of Frankfurt-am-Main. As she did a quick scan around to make sure no surprises were coming, she took the younger red-haired girl with the hazel eyes by the arm. "Give me an idea of what's going down…!" Her voice then trailed off as her eyes locked on the well-hidden manor house overlooking the Greifswald Bodden. "Oh, shit!"

The others who came with the Elder Slayer — a small quick reaction team of British aurors under Harry's command, plus the people who had been visiting the director of the DMLE when Faith had come to alert her friend about what was happening here — were also gaping in sheer awe at what was now happening over the field where Uchida Ryūsei had been beheaded by Margareta Hecht two years before World War Two began in Europe.

"Fuck…!" Xander breathed out for them all.

Everyone else nodded as they watched over two dozen humanoid figures — the vampires all had special devices to protect them from the daylight similar to what those who helped Spike and Angel endure exposure to the Sun had once possessed; those that didn't have such devices were clearly demons in human form — float in mid-air about five metres off the ground, their bodies being mercilessly shredded from the inside-out by white energy that was burning them one cell at a time. As wails of ghastly pain and cries for mercy escaped them, people then found themselves gazing upon the rather ordinary-looking man standing near the back door of the Schloss, arms crossed as he stared at them with an expression akin to what anyone would look like dealing with cockroaches. Standing beside and slightly behind the Undying Lord was a smirking Meagan Schwartz, who clearly was enjoying the sight of those who would have claimed her soul confront something they couldn't hope to overwhelm. As a relieved breath escaped Harry, he perked as Thérèse's hand squeezed his shoulder. "Is she still the heir to the Black seat?" she whispered.

"She would be my heir if I died before Pansy and I had children; she stands before Dora and Teddy in that line," he quietly admitted. "Rose would succeed me if I died before Mandy and I had children. Since Meagan's been 'let go' by Wolfram and Hart…"

"Will they let her go, Harry?" Percy asked.

"With the _Rittmeister_ back?" Rupert wondered. "To borrow Buffy's term for it, Percy, _Freiherr_ von Taserich is the real 'Big Bad' in the eyes of all demons alive today."

The senior undersecretary blinked. "Oh…!"

"Harry!"

People perked, then smiled as Meagan ran over to them. Before she could embrace her cousin, the lawyer then slowed on seeing the troupe of a dozen Slayers — including their overall leader and deputy leader — standing there. "_Frau_ Summers! _Frau_ Lehane! Welcome to Schloss Greifswald!" She then gazed on the demons and vampires being burned alive in the air close to the back door. "The _Rittmeister_ is a little busy right now, but he'll be happy to receive you and your friends as soon as he's done."

"I take it, Meagan, they didn't like the idea of you 'quitting' on them like you just did," Harry jokingly noted as he came over to warmly embrace the older woman.

"They didn't," the daughter of Marius Black stated. "When their monitor spells picked up that my body had 'died' — yet my spirit never was delivered to the home dimension of the Senior Partners — they sent these uncouth _dummköpfe_ to find out what happened." She winked at the others. "They should have called for an appointment first."

People gaped at her, then everyone roared with laughter…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **Danke schön** — Thank you very much; **Schlafen Galatea** — Sleeping Galatea; **Aufwachen Galatea** — Waking Galatea; **Sprechen Sie Englisch?** — Do you speak English?; **Generalfeldmarschall** — Literally "Field Marshal General," the German equivalent of a field marshal in Britain or a general of the army in the United States (NATO rank code OF-10); **Ministérstvo Mágičeskie Del** — Literally "Ministry of Magical Affairs," the post-1954 Soviet (and after 1991, Russian) version of the Ministry of Magic, the successor organ to the NKMD; **Vxodít'** — Enter/Come in; **Vólos** — The Slavic god of the earth; **NHS** — National Health Service, the United Kingdom's publicly-funded healthcare system which is primarily funded through national taxation; **Verdammt** — Damned/Accursed; **Oberunsäglicher** — Senior Unspeakable; **Abteilung für Mysterien** — Department of Mysteries; **Stabschef der Unsäglichen** — Chief of Staff of the Unspeakables; **Dummköpfe** — Plural of **dummkopf** ("dunderhead").

2) British military unit notes:

**The Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry** (short-form **R BUCKS Y**) was first formed in 1794 as a **yeomanry** (volunteer militia cavalry) for the defence of the United Kingdom against potential French invasion. The regiment dispatched a company of troopers for service in South Africa in the Boer War, then formed an overseas regiment for service in World War One that was converted to a machine gun battalion. In 1921, the regiment was amalgamated with the **Berkshire Yeomanry** (**BERKS Y**) and re-rolled as artillery; in that form, it served on the Western Front in the early days of World War Two, was evacuated from the Continent at Dunkerque, then dispatched to augment British forces in India. After the war, the regiment reverted to a Territorial Army role and underwent more transformations until it emerged in 1995 as **1 (Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry) Signal Squadron** (**1 [RBY] SIG SQN**), a unit of the Royal Corps of Signals, which it serves to this day. In the universe of this story, the Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry was reformed with Avalonian help as an armoured regiment with headquarters in **Milton Keynes** at the northern end of the county.

**The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry** (**O&BLI**) was first formed in 1881 from the union of two infantry regiments, the **43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot** (formed in 1741) and the **52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot** (formed in 1755). Nicknamed the "Ox and Bucks" and given a peacetime establishment of two battalions, the regiment formed twelve overseas battalions for service on the Western Front in World War One and nine battalions for service in Northwest Europe, North Africa, Italy and the Far East in World War Two. In 1958, the regiment was made part of the Green Jackets Brigade and would administratively be merged into the **Royal Green Jackets** in 1966. Today, the Ox and Bucks is seen as an ancestral unit of the **Rifles**. In the universe of this story, companies of the 7th (Volunteer) Battalion of the Rifles at Milton Keynes, Abington, High Wycombe and Aylesbury were expanded and merged into a two-battalion regiment and reformed as the Ox and Bucks, maintaining affiliation with the Rifles. The 2nd Battalion is based at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire while the 1st Battalion is in Oxford. The 1st Battalion is tasked as an air assault unit while the 2nd Battalion is line infantry.

3) The **Golem of Prague** is a legend from the late Sixteenth Century. According to the story, Rabbi **Judah Loew ben Bezalel** (circa 1520-1609) created this creature — called "Joseph" — to defend the Prague ghetto (Jewish quarter) from pogroms and other acts of antisemitism, especially in the wake of a potential order of expulsion or extermination issued by the Holy Roman Emperor. Joseph remained active except on the Sabbath, when the rabbi removed the _shem_ (derived from one of the Names of God, this was an ofuda-like piece of paper that gave the golem its quasi-life and power) to ensure the creature could take a day off. While the legends vary as to the golem's fate, the origin story remains the same and still inspires stories right to this very day, including how the golem killed a Nazi in World War Two! In the universe of this story, Joseph did get out of control and caused a lot of damage…especially to those magicals sent by the Emperor to stop it, thus inspiring wizarding governments to pass strict laws over their creation and usage.

4) A **gymnasium** (plural **gymnasien**) in the German educational system is a school that ranges from Grades 5-13 (ages 10-18) on the North American scale which has a strong emphasis on academic learning; these sorts of schools were originally founded for the purpose of teaching classical languages like Latin and Greek. In many ways, this type of institution is similar to an American prepatory school or a British grammar school. These days, _gymnasien_ are mostly state-funded public schools that are co-educational, but a number of private and parochial — as well as same-sex — schools still exist; back in **Linn Heinrich**'s day, girls-only _gymnasien_ were quite common. These schools divide their years using Latin terms: **Sexta** ("sixth"), **Quinta** ("fifth"), **Quarta** ("fourth"), **Tertia** ("third"), **Secunda** ("second") and **Prima** ("first"), descending in number as the student progresses up in grade. The first three levels are single-year classes. The equivalents for Grades 8-13 are split into two-year blocks, with each individual year marked with "Lower" (_Unter_) for the younger class or "Upper" (_Ober_) for the older class, i.e. **Obertertia** ("Upper Third") as the equivalent for Grade 9 in North America or the third year of middle school in Japan.

5) _Harry Potter_ location and character notes:

The exact location of **Ottery Saint Catchpole** was never given in the _Harry Potter_ novels save for it being somewhere in Devon. As there is a **River Otter** in the eastern part of the county — as well as a town named **Ottery Saint Mary**; the Harry Potter Wikia states this is most likely the namesake of the Weasley family hometown — I placed Ottery Saint Catchpole on the north shore of the River Otter opposite **Honiton** on Trunk Road A30 connecting Exeter to the west and Basingstoke to the east (via Trunk Road A303).

As an aside, the two home names outside the **Burrow** (the Weasley family home) and the **Rookery** (a popular fan name for the Lovegood family home due to its shape), as noted above, are the homes of the Diggory and Fawcett families. **Stoatshead Hall**, the home of **Cedric Diggory**'s family, is named after a steep hill from which people could find portkeys to attend the Quidditch World Cup in _Goblet of Fire_. The **Waterfall**, home of the Fawcett family — a girl with that family name first appeared in _Chamber of Secrets_; in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_, I give her the name **Shanessa Fawcett** — is named in acknowledgement of a homophone to "fawcett" from which water flows down.

The **Dark Lord Chaucer** was first mentioned in _TI&tPS_. He was active in the Nineteenth Century. It was because of him that the village of **Rhosan Green** in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire — home of the Meretrice quintuplets — was made to literally disappear from view for over a century.

**Galea Thruston** is my creation. Her brother **Orsino Thruston** and his band, the **Weird Sisters**, first appeared in _Goblet of Fire_.

6) The term **Keep Up The Skeer** ("keep up the scare") was one of the personal maxims of Lieutenant General **Nathan Bedford Forrest** (1821-77) of the Confederate States Army; after the end of the Civil War, he was made the first leader of the original **Ku Klux Klan**…but eventually quit the organization because it had become too violent even for him. In military operations, "keeping up the scare" meant to constantly and continuously harass an opponent until they were virtually run to the ground and had no means of defending themselves due to both physical exhaustion of the troops and lack of supplies, ensuring victory by either total destruction or surrender.

7) _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ character and object notes:

The **Buffybot** AKA **Anne Summers** first appeared in the fifth season episode "Intervention."

**April Mears** (the family name is my invention, taken from the name of her own creator, **Warren Mears**), first appeared in the fifth season episode "I Was Made to Love You," three episodes before Anne's first appearance.

**Faith Lehane** first appeared in the third season episode "Faith, Hope and Trick."

**Violet Day** (the family name is my invention, based on the woman who portrayed her, Felicia Day) first appeared in the seventh season episode "Showtime."

The **Scythe** AKA the **Mʔ** (the second symbol of that word is a glottal stop, the sound being similar to what the hyphen in _uh__-__oh_ represents) first appeared in the seventh season episode "Touched."

**Dawn Summers** AKA the **Key** first appeared in the fifth season episode "Buffy vs. Dracula." As an aside, the "Dracula" that appeared in that episode — in the universe of this story — was not the **Vlad Ṭepeṣ** that appeared in the _Dracula_ sequence of novels written by **Fred Saberhagen** (1930-2007); this interpretation of the famous lord of Wallachia first appeared in the 1975 novel _The Dracula Tape_ (1999 edition ISBN 0-671-57839-1); the "Dracula" Buffy fought was a fake who tried to play up on the latter's legend.

The incident concerning **Xander Harris**' loss of his left eye was depicted in the seventh season episode "Dirty Girls."

**Theresia Halls** is named in tribute to the unnamed German potential Slayer who appeared in the seventh season episode "Beneath You," though this is not the same woman as that character was killed in that episode. I based the name for this particular character on the actress who played that unnamed potential, Tess Hall.

And if you don't know who **Buffy Summers**, **Willow Rosenburg** and **Rupert Giles** — not to mention Xander Harris, of course — where've you been for the last two decades?

8) The **War of Clone Rights** on Sagussa was better described in _The Senior Year_; it was the primary cause of what would eventually happen to Moroboshi Ataru during the "Great Father Ataru" element of the storyline. This event occurred 13,000 years ago. I based the whole concept on the storyline of the **Clone Wars** that occurred on Krypton that was described in the _World of Krypton_ mini-series, published in 1988 and written by John Byrne as a side-story to his _Superman_ storyline as was published by DC Comics in the wake of the _Crisis of Infinite Earths_ maxiseries, which initiated the first mass reboot of continuity for characters such as Superman himself. However, to give an idea of what happened on Sagussa, the War of Clone Rights lasted 514 years (a Sagussan year is the same length as an Earth year) and killed ten billion people, effectively driving the **Fourth Sagussan Republic** (the term "republic" in this case [in Sagussan, _sen'a_] also can translate as "civilization") to final extinction ten millennia ago.

As an aside, the **Power Jewels** and how and why they were created were first described in my fanfic story _Wanderers_.


	14. The Shiroiwa Girls Have a Picnic

The Avalon bioroid factory, London time: Two hours before lunch (Berlin time: An hour before lunch)…

"Mizuho?"

Hearing no response from their classmate and friend, the two young women exchanged a look before ascending the stairs to the domed chamber that served as the living quarters of the mistress of the Staff of Gihan. Once there, they noted that Inada Mizuho was asleep in her bed, a gentle snore fluttering from her lips. The Staff was standing vertical on a special holder Mizuho synthesized for it right beside the bed, its focusing crystal softly pulsing. Seeing that tranquil scene, both Etō Megumi and Minami Kaori breathed out with a mixture of relief and exasperation. "I really wish she wouldn't do these things," the former quietly mused to her friend; even if the would-be warrior-priestess was normally dead to the world when she slept, it was only being polite. "What in the name of the gods has she been doing…?"

"Dearest…oh, you naughty boy…stop being so forward…!"

Both girls' cheeks reddened on hearing that passionate moan from their friend before they exchanged another look. "Ataru," Kaori whispered, a knowing smile crossing her freckled face. "Not that I don't blame her for dreaming of him…"

"You believe her, don't you?" the blue-eyed girl with the wavy black hair that went down to the level of her shoulder blades asked.

The bespectacled girl with the braided black hair and deep blue eyes nodded. "Hai. Even if she still scares me at times, she's never lied about anyth-…"

**_Controller, awaken._**

Both girls jerked on hearing the Staff's powerful male voice echo through the room. A groan escaped Mizuho as her hazed mind seemed to teeter between wakefulness and the wonderful dream she was now having concerning her would-be bond-mate. The latter choice won out as another snore escaped her, which made her fellow "daydreamers" sigh. "She's tired, Bō-san," Megumi whispered as she put her fingertip to her lips to indicate that the Staff shouldn't push its current controller. "What's wrong?"

**_Gretchen Streit and Elle Andreas, two of the magical gynoids you encountered 33.2 days ago at the Therme Bad Wörishofen complex in the Free State of Bavaria, are attempting to communicate to the Controller, Etō Megumi_**, the Staff replied; even if Mizuho was the proper controller of the ancient Sagussan super-weapon, it had been made to allow her classmates — within reason — to assume temporary control whenever she was sleeping.

Both girls blinked before they blushed as they tried not to giggle. It had been a normal weekend away from the factory for the Shiroiwa girls. Having acquired a lot of euros to spend thanks to Mizuho hunting down some lost magical treasures for a friend of Mundungus Fletcher's, Krätzen Schnabel, the twenty-one middle school students from another dimension and ten years back in time had decided they wanted to visit a real European spa. Therme Bad Wörishofen was chosen because it was in Germany — which was always seen as the "bad" place in the eyes of the Greater East Asia Republic thanks to what the Nazis had done to the Imperial Family, to say anything of thousands of people in both Tōkyō and Kyōto, at the end of World War Two which saw the modern dictatorship finally rise in 1946 — and that it was relatively close to the magical district of Ratisbon in modern-day Regensburg near the Czech border; there, they could purchase normal clothing and not make use of the school uniforms they had got into the habit of wearing since their awakening in this dimension the day of the Liberation.

At the spa, they encountered a group of eight very beautiful women who had also elected to take a weekend off and enjoy soothing mineral waters. Soon enough, the Shiroiwa girls discovered that these "women" were actually magical golems created during the European magical side of the Greater East Asia War as part of a special research project meant to support German partisan efforts against the Allies in the wake of a final defeat. Led by a sexy green-eyed redhead named Cathrin Vogt — who saw their overall creator as her father — they had been living in a magical enclave on the slopes of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain, which had once been a satellite camp of Dachau. There, they had been accepted as welcome guests by a coven of nightwalker vampires who were attracted to the place years ago by the sinkhole of death-magic that the slaughter of hundreds of Jewish and Roma partisans who had hunted civilians mercilessly in reprisal over the Holocaust unleashed; allying with the vampires ensured the magical gynoids would not have to deal with a party of wizards and witches seeking to destroy them.

However, due to the incredible complexity of their programming which made them totally human in every aspect imaginable — not to mention the urge they often felt to be intimate with a lover; they had all been designed as living sex dolls despite later proposals to upgrade them to "war golem" status for use in the field — Cathrin and her sisters frequently went out to spend time intermingling with normal people, usually in places were no magical save the odd normal-born might go. Luck just brought them to the Roman-style spa near Bad Wörishofen the same day the Shiroiwa girls came down from the factory. And while Mizuho and her classmates had been as cautious as ever when it came to shielding their identities, being with Cathrin and her sisters — even for just a couple of days — had been as close to normalcy for the twenty-one victims of _The Program_ as they had enjoyed since they first woke up in Gestation Tower #98.

"What do they want?" Kaori asked.

_**It appears that Gretchen Streit and Elle Andreas are part of the overall situation concerning the daywalker vampires under the command of Adam Sewell who have been moving recently to attack magicals, Minami Kaori. They have intelligence they wish to pass on to the Controller concerning what Adam Sewell and his allies plan to do to those people currently incarcerated within Her Majesty's Prison Azkaban in 17.5 hours time.**_

Mizuho's friends exchanged another look, then Megumi sighed. Mizuho had kept her friends appraised of what had been happening down on Earth over the last couple days, especially when it came to the Schwarze Mädchen and how they had been saved from death thanks to an immortal Prussian warlord who had always been sympathetic to normal-born wizards and witches in the face of magical traditionalists; without a doubt, Josef von Taserich had learned of the presence of Niphentaxian observers — with their Avalonian slaves — before the start of World War Two and made use of non-templated bioroids to ensure Gellert Grindelwald's coven of hit-witches would survive the war. While their friend had been circumspect when it came to yesterday's incident in Diagon Alley — as if something else had happened at that time; the would-be warrior-priestess had acted quite giddy for a while after she returned from Gringotts with spending money for this weekend's trip to Japan — the other Shiroiwa girls knew what the vampires had been planning to do. As to the "why," Mizuho had no idea…but given that those creeps had planned to attack a light brigade's worth of witches trapped and totally helpless in cryogenetic suspension in a cave at Nurmengard, it definitely wasn't good.

"Let's get changed," Megumi bade.

Kaori nodded…

* * *

Abertawe Alley overlooking the east bank of the River Tawe off Foxhole Road in Swansea (forty-five kilometres northeast of Lundy), ten minutes later…

"Are ye lasses sure the Friend of Dragons heard ye?"

"We believe so," Elle Andreas said with a polite smile as she gazed on the elderly owner of the Tawe Tea Room, Llywelyn Belyn. Even if she could speak the Queen's English with no foreign accent whatsoever, the raven-haired golem with the dark brown eyes and the olive-brown skin decided to act "natural" and allow herself to be recognized right away as a native of Germany. "We encountered her and her friends at a spa not far from München a month ago. We overheard something concerning those vampires who've attacked people in Britain yesterday and wanted to pass it on to her."

That made the balding near-squib — he had barely been able to pass his OWLs at Hogwarts back in the mid-1940s and had never gone on to NEWT study — blinked. "Then why don't ye speak to them Black Maidens? They've got a Royal Warrant backing them up to flush them monsters out of the country. They'd want to know what's going on."

"I'm sure _die Freundin von Drachen_ will do that," Gretchen Streit mused as she gave him a smile, which made him blush; he was a sucker for a pretty face and the diminutive blonde with the brown eyes was that. "Besides, aren't you curious as to who she is?"

He considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Aye, that's true!" He shrugged as he turned to head back behind the bar. "Well, if anyone can figure it out, it'll be ol' Xeno Lovegood or his daughter Luna at the _Quibbler_. Far better reporters than that mudrackin' lot that run the _Prophet_ these days." With a snort, he headed off.

Once they were relatively alone — they had chosen a back corner booth in the small tea shop so they wouldn't attract attention; also, at this time of day, the place was empty save for the owner — both women relaxed. "«She normally responds to requests for her to come meet people promptly,»" Elle mused in German. "«What's the delay?»"

Gretchen shrugged. "«She's a normal woman underneath all that power, Elle,»" she replied. "«She needs to sleep. Given what happened yesterday…»"

Elle nodded. Given that they had lived with vampires for the better part of sixty-five years ever since they hid themselves after the Trischen Academy was occupied by forces of the American Magical Corps under Mollie Bean's command a week before the Battle of the Gates, the golems created by Johannes Vogt had forged deep connections with many covens of the undead across the Continent. The incident yesterday at Oświęcim — even if they were German spiritually, neither Elle nor Gretchen addressed that awful place as "Auschwitz" — had sent shock waves across Europe, making many vampires cringe as they wondered what the hell had brought the _**Avatar of the Master of Entropy**_ himself across from Japan to confront two daywalker vampires inside the magical section of the Birkenau extermination camp. While the official statement from the Polish Ministry of Magic had confirmed that one of the daywalkers had been slain by Moroboshi Ataru and the other taken off to be transformed into an Avalonian, there had been no details.

Elle and Gretchen had been quick to understand what happened and why. Wilhelm Mandel and Janina Neumann were unrepentant Nazis that had been drafted into the SS when they, for some odd reason, avoided being called to serve in the Magische Reichsarmee. Both had been members of the SS detachment at the extermination camp set up near Oświęcim and had been involved in the torture and murder of hundreds of magical partisans who raped and killed thousands of normal Germans in retaliation for the Final Solution. They had been turned by Adam Sewell and his sister Valdoma — then possessing a pair of normal vampires — sometime after the end of World War Two, becoming drifters as they dreamt of the day the Nazi banner would be raised again over the Fatherland…yet doing nothing to promote the rise of a "Fourth Reich," which proved what cowards they really were deep down in the golems' eyes. After Adam had made his alliance with Theodore Nott to deal with the Avalonians, both Wilhelm and Janina had been sent to Oświęcim to tap into the huge sinkhole of death magic haunting the extermination camp there in hopes of allowing Adam's friends to finally reacquire corporeal forms after they had been destroyed at the hands of the Rail-Splitter during the Score and Four.

Somehow, both Elle and Gretchen now suspected, the spirits of those who had been killed at Birkenau during World War Two called out to Ataru in Japan…bringing the man who had been the last host of the Earth Angel and the Xiàolíng Emperor of Hàn across Eurasia to confront Wilhelm and Janina. Given that — as many Avalonians now believed — the man had been touched directly by the ancient Sagussan god of death himself, such an encounter would have seen Ataru assume his "Cyborg" form even if he was genetically an Avalonian himself, thus safe from being turned; in that Terminator-like form, it was believed Ataru could easily survive a direct attack from the Protector of All Life herself. Wilhelm was killed, Janina captured and forced through a body-swap…

…and Ataru had gained the chance to meet Inada Mizuho for the first time.

Thinking of that, Gretchen smirked. While most of the other Shiroiwa girls were normal teenagers despite the living hell they had endured thanks to _The Program_, the mistress of the Staff of Gihan was the epitome of uniqueness. The role playing gamer who had suffered from schizophrenia — according to the _Battle Royale_ manga; such had never been stated in the novel…though it had been quite obvious given her behaviour — who had won control of one of the most deadly weapons ever forged had overcome her illnesses to become an international and interplanetary magical heroine with a stature equal to Harry Potter's and Nagi Springfield's. And while she always spoke with the haughty tones of a magical knight from the high Middle Ages, Mizuho could back up her words with prompt, violent action as magical poachers of all types had learned to their cost since the day she rescued a young girl from dying in Hogwarts in March…

"Gretchen-san! Elle-san!"

Hearing that voice, both girls' heads snapped over to gaze upon two teenagers in normal clothing walking into the tea room, one holding the Staff of Gihan. As Llywelyn blinked in confusion on noting that neither of them was the Friend of Dragons, Elle and Gretchen waved back, beckoning Etō Megumi and Minami Kaori — as they had long concluded given how close these two girls were to Inada Mizuho; surmising who was which had been easy given Kaori's freckles, an echo of the acne scars that she had endured back in her first life — over. "«It's been a long time, hasn't it?»" Elle asked in Japanese.

"«It has,»" Megumi answered as she gently placed the Staff on the floor nearby before they sat down. "Master!" she then called out in accented English towards the bar. "Two breakfast teas, please," she asked as she held up a galleon coin.

He nodded. "Aye, lass, right away." He then stopped. "Um…?"

"She's sleeping right now," Kaori answered as she nudged close to Gretchen, reaching down with a hand to grasp the golem's. "Just because she's willing to do things that your magical police don't bother with doesn't mean she's Ultraman."

Llywelyn blinked before nodding in understanding. "Aye, that's true," he said as he moved to make tea. "Harry Potter and his friends across Europe have been fighting to boost up the number of aurors ever since that Riddle wanker was put down in '97. But do the bloody tightwads in the Wizengamot and elsewhere want to pay for it? No! Of course not! Then they start complaining whenever them poachers your friend's been going after try to steal dragons! Dragon handlers can't handle people trying to steal from their reservations. They shouldn't bloody hell have to, anyway!" He shook his head before coming over with the tea, then made change for Megumi's galleon.

Once he headed back to the bar, Megumi mentally commanded the Staff to throw up a notice-me-not field around them; Llywelyn wouldn't be affected, but he wouldn't overhear their words unless they called out to him directly. Given the stupid attitudes magicals had towards golems — especially sentient ones — it was just being kind to a pair of wonderful friends. "What's wrong, Elle-san?" she asked, keeping to English even if she used the Japanese honorifics; it was good practice and she had expanded her knowledge of that language in recent months far beyond what the teachers at Shiroiwa Junior High School had done for her back in more innocent days.

"How much has your friend told you about what's been going on in Europe these last couple of days?" Elle asked as she reached over to grasp Megumi's hand.

A sigh answered from the younger woman, though she didn't use her new powers to probe into the golem's head. Elle's spirit was anchored to a ruby meson crystal inside her skull — which did wonders for her behavioural programming — and it would keep her thoughts shielded from anything save something with the equivalent energy output of the Power Jewel…which the Staff did have, though only Mizuho could make it do such things. Besides, probing into the mind of another person really made Megumi cringe; it was a gross invasion of that person's privacy. "Some vampires — not from the coven close to where you live — decided to steal magic. They went after the Schwarze Mädchen first before our friend found out about them and brought them to the bioroid factory to be let out of their chambers. Now they're going after the people in Azkaban. The attack should be sometime before dawn tomorrow morning. Since our friend can't detect people hiding behind meson shields, it's hard to track them down with the Staff."

"Do you know where they are?" Kaori asked as she felt Gretchen — whom she had spent a lot of intimate time with a month ago — allow her hand to rest on the golem's leg.

"No," Gretchen replied with a light smile as Kaori's hand began to gently rub her leg. "Even if the disembodied ones are grateful to be using corporeal forms that didn't come already equipped with a living soul, it still strikes them as 'unnatural' to be in the bodies of golems." She tried not to scowl on saying that as the younger girls blinked in surprise on hearing that the vampires they were talking about were possessing golem bodies in lieu of having their own. "Atop that, those bodies weren't — as far as we know — built with tracing mechanisms that would allow us to track them." She sighed before sipping her tea; her body possessed special mechanisms that could break down food and allow it to repair any damaged components in the same manner a normal person's body would via one's digestive system. "Like it or not, we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see them eliminated," she added. "Are you aware of who leads them now?"

"Hai. He was one of the idiots who goaded the start of the American Civil War back in 1861. Our friend didn't know about those guys 'borrowing' bodies like that," Megumi breathed out as she sipped her own tea…and tried not to blush too much as Elle allowed the younger girl's free hand to gently fall on her leg. Much that she often enjoyed sex with many of her classmates, it still struck her as odd to do this with another woman…even if Elle HAD been built as a living _sex toy_! "Really shocked us all when we found out that Lincoln-daitōryō was still alive after being shot in the back of the head by that Booth creep just after Lee-taishō surrendered."

"_Herr_ Sewell was magical before he was turned," Elle stated as she wrapped an arm around Megumi's waist, which made her blush as she found herself leaning against the taller woman. "And after living for five thousand years, he's picked up a lot of magical knowledge. Including how to create horcruxi." At the younger girls' curious looks, she moved to explain about what was often seen as the blackest of magics.

Both Kaori and Megumi made faces at the idea of literally ripping one's very _**soul**_ apart to remain on the mortal plane even if the body was killed; even if they had been saved from final death thanks ultimately to a sweet boy who only wanted to have a replica of his favourite manga character created, they knew all things were mortal and would die, even those who called themselves "Immortals." The former then blinked. "Wasn't that what that Riddle creep used to stay alive after Harry-san's mother killed him?"

"Same idea. The souls are anchored in necklaces they wear," Elle affirmed, nodding.

"So all our friend has to do is destroy those necklaces, right?" Megumi asked.

"It would be smarter to destroy the bodies as well," Gretchen stated. "Unlike us — and unlike the prototypes that Linn Heinrich developed with our creator's assistance, I think — they were built primarily for combat. While we would be seen as acceptable since we are designed as intimate gynoids, they…" She shook her head.

"Are you guys safe?" Kaori asked.

The golems blinked before breathing out. "We should be," Elle affirmed. "Our current host, Theodore Nott, doesn't realize we're not human. The meson in our bodies — our creator privately managed to forge some diamond and ruby meson on his own to get around the restrictions imposed by the government concerning the use of that material — allows us all to simulate wandless magical powers with great ease, right up to using what are known as the 'unforgivable curses.' Since it's only just a little over a half-day away from the attack on Azkaban, we could easily escape and make our way back home."

"Though you could…" Gretchen playfully added with a wink.

That made Mizuho's best friends titter in embarrassment at such a blatant offer to become Gretchen's and Elle's mistresses. A month ago when they had all been together at the spa, Cathrin and her seven sisters had been willing to demonstrate ALL their sexual capabilities to the Shiroiwa girls, even the ability to transform into a hermaphrodite of sorts and act as a male lover. While the more sexually promiscuous of the Shiroiwa girls — Sōma Mitsuko, Shimizu Hirono, Yahagi Yoshimi and Tendō Mayumi — were tempted to do just that so that the golems would have a REAL home to call their own after sixty-five years of hiding from magical humans, Noda Satomi had slammed down hard on it. As always, the smartest of the Shiroiwa girls was driven by her steadfast belief that come next February, all of them would be forced back into the dimension of their birth…and where would that leave poor Cathrin and her sisters then? While an argument ensued, it was stopped by Nakagawa Noriko immediately, who — while stating that she herself was quite curious about being intimate with such perfect lovers; that had made the golems madly blush on hearing such a complement from the Elder Mother of the Shiroiwa girls — stated that since they were Avalonians even if they were Terran-turned, it just wouldn't be right and proper to enslave Cathrin and her sisters.

"We want to be like you," Elle stated.

Kaori and Minami perked on hearing that before they exchanged looks. "It's just like those mechanical gynoids Ataru had to make love to a week ago," the former noted.

"Could you do a body-swap as you are now?" the latter asked.

The golems considered that before nodding. "We could," Gretchen stated. "We read about that incident in _The News of the Magical World_; the coven in Spitzeberg has a subscription." The non-human magical publication has its monthly issues sent out a week after the _Quibbler_'s issues went out to human subscribers; while Luna Lovegood couldn't get the story concerning _Haida_'s new crew members out in the latest issue of the latter publication, she did with the former. "Still, we are comfortable bonding with organic humanoids; that's how we were built in the first pl-…"

She and Elle then jerked slightly as they felt something wash over them from the east-northeast. Kaori and Minami were quick to sense it. "What's wrong?" the latter gasped as she moved to gently comfort Elle. "You look sick. Are you alright, Elle-san?"

Elle blinked before she gazed in confusion at the younger girl. "I don't know…"

* * *

Northwest of the M1/M5 interchange near Swinford (seventeen kilometres east of Coventry) in Leicestershire, fifteen minutes before…

"Mistress! Mistress! Mistress, you must get up…"

A groan escaped from under the pile of blankets atop the bed in the master bedroom of the Preceptory, the traditional home of the Noble and Ancient Magical House of Vance of Swinford; its last known living member had been Tobias Vance, who had been killed by the Curse of Maha since he had been the future Vanessa Zabini's husband and he had been "stealing" her from Melvin Kneen. Despite the fact that no one had lived in this place outside the house elves for well over thirty-three years, the Preceptory — it was named such because of a monastery that had been located at this very site which had been used by the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of Saint John until 1540 at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries as King Henry VIII launched the English Reformation — had been well maintained. Regardless of the rumours that had circulated over the years because of Vanessa becoming the richest magical woman in the country thanks to the large monetary bequeaths her seven husbands had left her in their wills, she had loved those men with a fierce devotion and wanted to ensure that their ancestral homes were kept intact in case a potential distant relative came along to claim the property.

Which Linn Heinrich had done when she was confirmed to be the heiress to the Earldom of Swinford via her mother, descent of a squib of the Vance family who married an officer of the King's German Legion in the latter years of the Napoleonic Wars.

"I'm up…!" an accented voice muttered from under the covers as a slender hand moved to shift away the blankets to reveal the tired face of the new Countess of Swinford. "What time is it…?" she groaned before hissing, "_Tempus_!"

A ghostly clock appeared before her, showing the time to be 10:12 AM. "Oh, damn…!" Linn grunted as she moved to get up. "Chassi, has breakfast been made?!"

A grinning Chassi, the head elf of the Vance household, nodded. "Yes, Mistress! Miss Ursula made a big breakfast for Mistress! Mistress should eat!"

Linn blinked before she sighed. "_Ach_, forgot…!" she muttered before tromping off to the bathroom to relieve herself and wash up before dressing.

A few minutes later — experience out in the field had taught the native of Northeim how to be quick when it came to morning ablutions before starting her work day — she walked into the kitchen to see a nude woman standing in front of the stove as she monitored some rice bubbling in a pot. Well, this lovely woman was almost nude; this replica of Linn's childhood friend had draped her front with an apron that didn't come close to disguising the incredible curves of her body, not to mention the smooth skin of her backside. And — as if she was doing everything to tease her creator into taking her and ravaging her every way imaginable — this living memorial to Ursula Wagner seemed not to care one bit that she was distracting Linn from more important things.

Then again, that was what she had been built to do in the first place.

"_Guten Morgen_, _meine Herrin_," Ursula teased as she winked at Linn, gently shifting her vibrant red hair — tied in a high ponytail — in a seductive manner as her hazel eyes sparkled with the passion that had been programmed into her from the start.

A groan responded. "Ursula! Who made me sleep so long?!" Linn snarled as she sat at the table, picking up a cup of coffee. "I should have been up hours ago."

"Elisa called over the floo and ordered me to let you sleep, Linn," Ursula said as she turned the heat down on the rice, then moved to pick up her own cup of coffee before walking over to sit beside her creator/mistress. "Everyone in the brigade have managed to get all the loose gynoids under control. The meeting of the Wizengamot won't be until this afternoon at two o'clock so you could take your oath as head of your house. Since _Herr_ Sewell and his friends are no doubt wanting to NOT keep losing numbers to the brigade, they've probably gone to ground to conserve their energy and prepare for tomorrow's raid on Azkaban." She then smirked. "Since you DID stay up so late…"

Linn shook her head. "Couldn't be really avoided, especially with what _Frau_ Bulstrode discovered," she noted before sipping her coffee. "How are you feeling?"

"Aroused and wanting you to make love to me for hours on end, _Liebste_," Ursula flatly stated, which made the other woman snort in amusement. "But then again, you made me this way, Linn…and then you wound up inside a storage tank for sixty-five years, which meant that I was practically dead to the world for the same amount of time! The bond's still there, but because your magic is so different now…"

"Soon, _Geliebte_," Linn vowed as she reached over to gently stroke the nexus between the golem's legs, which made Ursula gasp in delight as she leaned into that grope and allowed a certain little part of her to grow out so her creator could play with it. "Not now. The Vengeance of Blood is still in effect until we run _Herr_ Sewell and his friends into the ground. Once that's done, we'll spend a wonderful night exploring all we did after you first awoke back at Trischen, then we'll go on from there."

A delighted sigh escaped the golem. "I can't wait!" Ursula mewed as she licked her tongue in anticipation, winking at her creator before turning back to her coffee.

Linn smirked as she turned back to her own meal. Ursula Wagner had been her first — and for a long time, only — true friend. Having moved to Northeim after her family had been run out of old West Prussia — that part which would later be incorporated into a newly-independent Poland to give that nation access to the Baltic Sea — when she was a baby, Ursula had been bombarded constantly with the outpouring of anger which would come to benefit the Nazis as they finally moved to seize power and overthrow the Weimar Republic in the early 1930s. One of the founding members of the _Bund Deutscher Mädel_ when it was still known as the _Schwesternschaften der Hitler-Jugend_, Ursula persuaded Linn to join just before the latter received her invitation to go to Trischen in 1928. There — especially during their summer vacations, where Linn could return from her "special gymnasium" to be with Ursula — they made friends with others of their _mädchengruppe_, all of whom were also refugees from those parts of Germany which were stripped from the Reich in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles. While Linn herself understood the injustice that treaty and its clauses had unleashed on the German people, she didn't buy fully into the Nazi propaganda…especially after she began magical training and learned how truly vast and complex God's Creation really was.

After they finally left the BDM on reaching their eighteenth birthdays the year Linn graduated from Trischen, Ursula and the other members of their _mädchengruppe_ joined the Party full-time to work under Trude Mohr and later Dr. Jutta Rüdiger to expand the League into every faucet of the lives of adolescent German women. They all stayed in touch with Linn as she became one of the founding members of the Schwarze Mädchen. Despite the pressures to adhere to the Statute of Secrecy, Linn knew Ursula and her friends wouldn't find magic really so odd as they had been deep admirers of Germany's many Steel Angels, the special guardians of the Fatherland when the Reichswehr had been nearly adulterated thanks to Versailles; since there had been no magical counterpart to World War One, research into creating the magical combat gynoids had gone ahead full-force with help from the Americans. That would — with some prompting from Gellert Grindelwald — make Linn research special security spells that would allow normals beyond what was allowed in the Statute to learn of magic and keep the secret; it had been based on the Fidelius Charm mixed with a wide-area geas anchored to a ward-stone.

Remembering Ursula's reaction on seeing Linn demonstrate some transfiguration after she had cast the charm, the chief interrogator of the Black Maidens could only smirk as the redhead's shouted "_Where can_ **I** _learn that?!_" echoed once more through her mind.

World War Two began four years after Linn and her friends left the BDM to pursue their adult lives. By then, Ursula and her friends had become local group leaders in the BDM in the old territory of the Kingdom of Hanover, with fashion-conscious Gisela Müller becoming the commander of their old troop in Northeim. While the business of waging a war on multiple fronts often prevented them from getting together for a night of reminiscing and exchanging gossip, they weren't strangers. Linn had served as Elsa Böhm's maid of honour when she married her childhood sweetheart Günter Friedrich on Christmas Day in 1940 after he — then a member of the _Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler_ — had come home for a couple weeks' from his unit, then in occupied France.

It was during those holidays that Linn made a proposal…

* * *

_Northeim, the Heinrich home, Wednesday 1 January 1941, breakfast… _

_"You want us to do WHAT, Linn?!" _

_Linn smirked as she wandlessly placed cups of tea before her friends; seeing their magical friend perform such a feat always sent shivers of envy and awe through them. "We're doing a special experiment with a form of magical gynoid — not so different from the Steel Angels — to act as intimate companions for the members of the Magische Reichsarmee." She gazed on Elsa Böhm, who had a beautiful glow on her face; a quick check with mage sight unfortunately revealed that she was not yet with child. "Your husband probably knows this better than I do, Elsa. How many troops in France are sick with syphilis because they decided to go visit a brothel in Paris or some other place?" _

_Elsa scowled, which made her look even cuter. She seemed a lot younger than her actual twenty-three years of age, her face dotted with many freckles around a thin nose and dark blonde hair she once tied in side ponytails but now kept braided to mid-back. "My husband would never cheat on me, Linn!" she snapped. "You know that!" _

_"Oh, stop that!" the bespectacled chief interrogator of the Schwarze Mädchen — who had shocked all her friends when she came to the wedding with the Iron Cross First Class, won for personal bravery while helping in the invasion of the Netherlands in May, on her black mess dress uniform with the ankle-length skirt and the standard SS badges on her jacket; a mixed confounding and notice-me-not charm fixed to her jacket ensured those who weren't in on the secret of magic wouldn't question what a WOMAN was doing in the uniform of the Party's elite guard — scolded. "I know Günter would never do that, Elsa! He's a puppy! All you have to do is yank his leash and he'll do tricks!" _

_The others all laughed as Elsa huffed and puffed, glaring at the taller woman. "She is right about that, Elsa," Ursula Wagner — who was no relation to the Führer's favourite composer, Linn knew — noted before sipping her tea. "Remember back when we were in the_ Bund _and Günter's group always tried to launch 'attacks' on our camp when we were enjoying summer break from school?" She winked at Elsa, who was now blushing a bright red. "I always wondered where he always disappeared to when we were busy dropping water balloons on his mates. You did seem quite happy afterwards." _

_"Ursula!" Elsa cried out. _

_More laughter filled the kitchen as the others gazed enviously on the first of their group to get married. "Well, you'll never have to worry about divorce or anything like that, Elsa," Gisela Müller stated as she playfully patted her friend's leg. "All you really have to do is worry about his surviving the war." She then shook her head, her dark hazel eyes hooded with sorrow; her own father had killed during the invasion of France. "I just hope it ends soon," the black-haired woman added. "It's nice to put the stupid French down finally after what they did to us in '19, but if the British don't finally see reason and sue for peace, we can probably expect the Americans to jump into it sooner or later. Let alone the Soviets." She gazed on Linn. "Is it really that bad in Russia, Linn? You told us about this woman…" _

_"Svetlána Múromeca," Linn provided. "Currently the Deputy Minister of Magical Affairs and the woman in charge of all internal security issues when it comes to the magical enclaves in the USSR. Ever since the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 — especially after Stálin succeeded Lénin — she's been waging a campaign to liquidate whole villages in Russia to ensure there could be no resistance to the 'new order' there." _

_"'Liquidate?'" Ursula asked as a chill filled her heart. _

_"Exterminate," Linn coldly stated. "Every man and woman — even the children above the age where they would have been invited to commence formal instruction — are all shot dead, then buried in unmarked graves to ensure relatives trying to seek revenge have no place to find the remains. Younger children have their minds wiped and they're given over to loyalists to ensure they have the proper 'political education.'" She made a face on saying that. "Almost like what_ Herr _Rölm ultimately wanted to see happen here." _

_The others scowled. The former leader of the Sturmabteilung had been a loyal member of the Party until he began showing signs that he wanted to challenge Adolf Hitler for the overall leadership of the Fatherland shortly after the 1933 elections finally saw the Nazis gain what they had sought for over a decade. Of course, such disunity at the top was something Germany simply couldn't afford as the nation moved to escape the ravages of the Great Depression, so Röhm and all of his allies were eliminated in Operation: Hummingbird, known more popularly these days as the "Night of the Long Knives." _

_In the eyes of Linn's friends, that had been a good thing. The SA were, for the most part, simple pigs in comparison to the dashing black knights of the SS from whom their host's own organization was modelled after. Yes, there were good people in the Brownshirts — the young native of Bielefeld west-northwest of Northeim murdered by Communist thugs three years before the Führer's election as Chancellor, Horst Wessel, being one such person — but the vast majority of them were brainless thugs that were best used to help keep the Jews suppressed and provide conscripts for the Wehrmacht. _

_"Does Minister Grindelwald intend to invade Russia?" Ursula asked. _

_"He's preparing for it," Linn warned as she gave her friends a knowing look, which made them all nod in understanding. The message their host was conveying was quite simple: NO speaking of this to other people since anything the Magische Reichsarmee did was always performed in concert with the Wehrmacht. "Not that we should have too much trouble. Thanks to Comrade Múromeca, all the classical knowledge the magicals of Russia had which could have helped them defend the country from outside invasion has either been wiped out by the Communists or lost when refugees fled the country to places like Finland." Since Finland was, in all effect, allied to Germany, that was alright in the eyes of the others. "We hit them smartly and hit them constantly the instant the Führer decides its time, we should knock the whole rotting works down soon enough before winter sets in and saves them like it saved them from Napoleon and his army in 1812." She nodded. "Which would be good, given how many people that monster Stálin's killed or allowed to starve to death over the last decade and more. They'd be crying to us to liberate them, especially the Ukrainians and the Baltics." _

_The others nodded. While the idea of getting into a war with a nation the size of the Soviet Union — in terms of total population, the Soviets outnumbered the Germans at an over two-to-one scale — was a scary prospect, the superiority of the Aryan race over the Slavic subhumans would negate those advantages. Atop that, the Nazis encouraged creativity and industrial prowess while the Communists did all they could to stifle it. Heaven save the Fatherland if Lénin's little lapdogs in Germany — who had gladly and willingly helped stab the German Army in the back in 1918 that had ultimately cost so much as all of Linn's friends could attest — had actually won power…! _

_Ursula shook her head. Much that she — like any other educated woman in Germany — often lamented what had happened over the last three decades, it wouldn't really help much since there was no way in heaven that women in Germany would be allowed to make such critical strategic decisions anytime soon. Gazing on Linn, who had fallen silent as she gazed out the window at her family's small backyard, the native of Graudenz — which the Poles had renamed "Grudziądz" — felt a touch of envy at how far the gangly and once-friendless woman had come in the ranks of the Black Maidens. The commander of the brigade's intelligence company and the chief interrogator — in essence, a magical intelligence officer — and a gifted technomancer, holding the equivalent Army rank of major, winner of the first class Iron Cross for bravery in the field… _

_"What is it?" _

_She perked before a smirk crossed her face as she gazed on Linn, who had noted that Ursula had been staring at her. "So what's this about making gynoid replicas of all of us, Linn?" the redhead then playfully teased. "I know you magicals are a lot more accepting of that sort of thing than we normals, but why…?" _

_As the others laughed, Linn took a deep breath. "Oh, maybe because I want to help you people feel as if you're helping our side of the war out other than lending me your ears whenever I need to complain about something," she said as she gazed on her oldest friend. "Ultimately, Master Gellert hopes to bring down the Statute of Secrecy once and for all and restore things to the way they were before 1692." That the master of the Elder Wand ultimately desired to have magicals rule over normals was still an issue to be dealt with, but that could wait until it was over with and Europe rendered free of pureblood tyranny. "I never understood it ever since I was invited to Trischen back in '28. We're all human in the end. I was born from a banker and a housewife, neither of which had any magic inside them even if_ Mutti _was descent from the powerless daughter of some old British noble line during the days of the King's German Legion. Magicals and normals have intermarried for years, even after the Statute was made law. Given what happened when the Steel Angels were made, what's so wrong with getting rid of that agreement?" _

_The others nodded; ever since Linn had devised that wonderful privacy charm to ensure they couldn't speak openly of magic willy-nilly to everyone who passed by, they often had thought about the whole situation behind what had separated magical from normal at the end of the Seventeenth Century. Yes, there had been a lot of witch trials in the old Holy Roman Empire during the previous couple of centuries…but with the coming of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, that sort of idiotic paranoia would have gone away eventually, replaced by calm and rational acceptance of magicals as being simply gifted by the Creator to do things no normal person could. And since it was possible to allow the power of magic to be passed on to children, the whole stupid situation concerning the so-called "purebloods" inbreeding with each other — as the case of many elements of the European royal families before the Great War showed — would never have arisen in the first place. Since magicals were ultimately forced by their own laws to adhere to the dictates of one's head of state — in Germany's case, the Führer himself — any potential cases of "muggle baiting" could be slapped down hard. And with the rise of non-magical metahumans as this new Übermenschen Gruppe being created by the famous_ Rittmeister _Josef von Taserich — a man rumoured to have lived for over TWENTY THOUSAND years! — loudly demonstrated, magic really wasn't so odd. _

_"I would have loved to come attend your graduation ceremony," Elsa finally noted. "We all would have, especially since it was on a Saturday and there was no regular school for us." She then shrugged. "You can work to make it happen for our children, Linn. That's why you're fighting this war, isn't it? To free those who only desire to have the right to live their lives as they so choose without hurting anyone else." _

_"That I am. All of us are," Linn lamented before she sighed. "Did I ever tell you all about Danni Larssen? She's a jäger company commander in our First Battalion." _

_The others nodded. "Norwegian girl from outside Oslo," Ursula stated. "She's a really beautiful woman. I'd swear she was German. What about her, Linn?" _

_"Well, she got her Iron Cross in the same fight I got mine when we hit the magical quarter of Amsterdam," Linn reported. "After it was over and_ Doña _Rosa checked us out, we crawled back into the barracks to get some sleep. Danni invited me over so we could have some lava schnapps to make the shakes go away." As Elsa's eyes instantly teared in horrified sympathy on hearing about her friend's suffering — as the devoted wife of a soldier, she understood all too well about the post-battle mental trauma people like her husband endured even well after it was all over with; ever since he had come home, Günter had nightmares about what he had seen and done out in the field — and the others grimaced, Linn sipped her tea. "Next thing we know, we were in Danni's bed going at each other like crazy!" She shook her head as the others all gaped in shock at her; since she was a very reserved woman at all times, they NEVER thought Linn Heinrich could ever do something like THAT! "Much that it's okay once in a while…" _

_"It's just not natural," Ursula noted. _

_Linn nodded. "And over half of the Magische Reichsarmee are men," she finished. _

_The others considered that for a moment, then Gisela breathed out. "Well, we've been doing everything we can for the war effort since it started. Why not this?" _

_People gazed on her, then Elsa breathed out, "Will they treat them nice?" _

_Linn smirked. "They'll have honour duels over yours, Elsa!" _

_That made the petite girl blush as the others laughed…_

* * *

Linn walked into the living room to see the five other female gynoids she had created in her first batch of prototypes standing at parade rest in front of the coffee table. As Ursula — having now dressed herself in surplus fatigues with no rank insignia on her epaulettes — came up to stand close to her creator, Linn tried not to weep on seeing those familiar faces even if their eyes were closed in simulated sleep. From little Elsa Böhm to sultry Gisela Müller, from the vivacious Irmgard Töpfer to the timid Monika Benz and the playful Marta Busch, they had been perfect in as many ways as Linn and her co-workers could make, using special crystals — not mesonium ones; Linn hoped to augment them with such as soon as possible — to copy the memories and souls of their templates to ensure these replicas could behave with the same level of humanity, even to the point where any non-magical would not notice the difference. That had been the same way with the male prototypes — all of whom were now in the main dining hall and under the charge of her company sergeant-major, Caroline Pierson, a flame-haired native of the Belgian town of Ghent in East Flanders — after they had been created; all of them had been mentally templated on male relatives of German members of the Schwarze Mädchen even if there had been liberties taken in the physical design.

Taking a deep breath, Linn set the coffee cup aside, then gestured with her hand.

"_Aufwachen Galatea_!"

Five pairs of eyes snapped open as the golems seemed to stiffen for a moment before they relaxed and looked around. Their eyes all soon locked on their creator. "Linn!" Elsa yelped as she came over to warmly embrace the taller girl. "How are you?!"

Linn gently rubbed Elsa's hair, which made her blush at that show of tenderness. On seeing that, the chief interrogator tried not to smirk as she allowed the others to gather around her to give her hugs and kisses. When the real Elsa Böhm's memories were copied into her replica, the latter seemed to develop a childish side that was worlds different from the loyal soldier's wife the original became. Sure enough, Linn's prediction on how others of the Magische Reichsarmee seconded to the initial tests — even the few volunteers from the Schwarze Mädchen who came out to help with those trials — would react to the gynoid Elsa had come true. She had to break up a half-dozen brawls between her comrades who wanted to claim the pretty girl as their own permanent lover, threatening them with a spell at the detention barracks at Nurmengard if they didn't keep their heads straight and their minds on the task at hand. Of course, the female prototypes had been blood-bonded to their creator as a precaution…though, if Ursula's behaviour earlier was any indication, that would make things pretty intense for the new Countess of Swinford come tomorrow evening…!

"So where are we, anyway?" Irmgard asked as she looked around, her blue eyes taking in the richly-decorated and incredibly old stone-walled room they were no win.

"As I once told your other-self, Irma, my mother's family is descent from one of the British blue-blood magical families, the Vances of Swinford," Linn explained. "This is their home, the Preceptory; it's an old monastery outside Rugby in Leicestershire."

"We won the war?!" Monika exclaimed.

"_Nein_," Linn answered. "Like I told you before I made you go to sleep, the Wehrmacht surrendered finally a week after _Herr_ Hitler killed himself and freed all of us from that _verdammt_ oath that blinded us to what was going on in Poland thanks to the SS." As the golems scowled on hearing that — as they were magically bound to their creator, they had all sensed the wild mood-shift in Linn when she woke up to the true horror of what the Nazis had unleashed across Europe — the chief interrogator added, "You've been asleep a lot longer than what we originally planned. Let me explain…"

* * *

Afan Forest Park (twelve kilometres east of Swansea), that moment…

A flash of light and energy allowed four people in casual clothing — with one holding a rather tall staff possessing a large focusing crystal which glowed with power — to appear in a nice piece of forest overlooking the Afan Valley Road and the river of the same name not so far from the village of Cynonville. As soon as the teleportation sphere formed by the Staff of Gihan faded, Minami Kaori then moved to lay out a blanket on the ground so that she and her friends could relax themselves while Etō Megumi handed over the small basket that she had been carrying in her free hand to Elle Andreas and Gretchen Streit knelt down to help Kaori to set up a picnic. "Lucky thing Master was able to get hold of some food for us without getting too many people involved," Megumi noted as she placed the Staff down on the blanket before she slipped off her sneakers and stepped onto it. "Are you sure you're feeling okay now?"

"It went away almost as soon as it came," Elle admitted as she and the others did the same thing with their footwear before they sat down and relaxed. As Kaori moved to open the picnic basket to see what was there, the Italian-looking golem moved to lay her head in Megumi's lap. "I never felt something like that before."

"Neither did I," Gretchen noted. "Cathrin and the others didn't recognize it either; neither did Karl…and, save for the prototypes, he's the oldest one of us all." Before they had come out here to enjoy a pleasant lunch out in the forest far from any prying eyes, she had called over to Lundy Keep to check up on the others. Save for the odd disquiet that came over them the instant that wave of whatever-it-was had warped past them, nothing was wrong. Theodore Nott was still trying to trace down what little of his pureblood allies were left after last night's fun and the vampires themselves had gone off to meet up with their friends and review strategy for the raid on Azkaban tomorrow morning. While there WAS the chance of someone acting stupid between now and then, the losses of the last couple of days would make even the most idiotic of the blood-suckers now seeking to cause trouble in Britain realize that someone had just declared open hunting season on their kind with no bag limit.

Even if they were "undead," the drive to survive was always strong.

Kaori perked. "What about the prototypes, Gretchen-san?"

"There were thirty of them built between 1942 and 1944 as part of the original magical take-off of the Borghild Project," Elle explained. "Six females, twenty-four males. Like us, they were designed as intimate companions for members of the Magische Reichsarmee when they needed that and didn't want to risk getting venereal diseases or pregnancies…even WITH the existence of contraception charms. They first came on-line the same time Professor Vogt created Karl and Cathrin, then the rest of us." She then smiled as Megumi handed her a freshly-made sandwich. "They were very nice."

"Do all of the Schwarze Mädchen know about you?" Megumi asked.

"Would surprise me if they didn't. Linn Heinrich helped the professor create us when she could spare time from her own work." Elle then nibbled on the sandwich. "She was a very nice woman. Modelled the girls she created after friends of hers from Northeim who were her troop sisters in the _Bund Deutscher Mädel_'s group based there." She then frowned. "Their templates were all killed by magical partisans in late 1942. It hurt Linn so much. After that, she started to treat those replicas she made as her friends literally brought back to life…which, in a way, they were deep down."

"That's horrible!" Kaori breathed out as she handed Gretchen a sandwich, then pulled out a take-out cup of tea. "Well, if they're no different than you, making them all Avalonians should be easy enough. Then Heinrich-shōsa could bond with one of them — or if she's really greedy about it, all of them! — and they can go on from there."

"But what about the boy dolls?" Megumi asked. "It'll be easy to make the girl dolls into Avalonians, but what about the boys like Karl-san?"

"Well, if Geran-kun would finally get a move on and find the Genesis Wand, it should be easy enough to make boy bioroids," Kaori noted. "Once we do that, Karl-san and the boys Heinrich-shōsa made could become bioroids themselves."

"'Geran?'" the two golems asked together.

Silence fell for a moment, then Megumi sighed. "You know who we are."

The older women blinked before they sighed. "We didn't want to scare you, Megumi-san," Elle stated. "You treated us like normal people when we met a month ago. From what we've heard, all those you've met when you came down from the factory with Mizuho-san — regardless of who or what they were — have always been treated the same way." She smirked. "It was pretty easy to figure it out, especially when you had such a pair of unique personalities like Mizuho-san and Mitsuko-san amongst your group."

"Especially Mizuho!" Kaori said with a smirk.

Megumi giggled. "Once people took into account how Niphentaxians always loved to make Avalonian replicas of popular fictional characters, it was easy to realize that you had been 'made' in the very same way," Gretchen added. "With all of you being Terran-turned in lieu of Terran-form, that threw people off. But given the power of your staff there — with the knowledge magicals gained back in the old days about how things that are fact in one dimension are fictional in another — the possibility of your being brought from a place where the events of _Battle Royale_ happened grows very high."

"My question is this: Book, movie or manga?" Elle asked.

That made Mizuho's friends laugh. "Manga. Actually, the English translation of it by Keith Giffen-sensei published in America gets it almost right," Kaori admitted. "The only difference is the amount of times _The Program_ is run." As the golems tensed, the bespectacled teenager sighed. "It's fifty times a year, not once a year."

Silence.

"And you all survived THAT?!" Gretchen gasped.

"Well, technically, we didn't 'survive.' Except Noriko and Shūya-kun, of course," Kaori admitted as she tried to keep an upbeat smile on her face. "Still, it really doesn't matter in the end. We're alive, in a place where _The Program_ never happened and we're as free as we could realistically be. All we have to do is agree as a group that here's where we're going to stay, then we can go down and be with Ataru."

"Mizuho's already met him," Elle noted.

More silence.

"**_WHAT?!_**" Kaori and Megumi shrieked out.

"Sorry!" Elle laughed as she and Gretchen moved to calm them. "Didn't she tell you?"

"Does it LOOK like it?!" Megumi snarled, though she didn't mind it when Elle drew her into her arms. "Damn it all, Inada! How can you NOT tell us you met _**Ataru**_?!"

"Satomi," Kaori cautioned as she wrapped an arm around Gretchen.

Still more silence.

"Right…!" Megumi drawled out.

"What about Satomi-san?" Elle asked as they relaxed.

"She's been the one who's argued all along that we shouldn't do anything to reveal ourselves to anyone," Kaori explained before sipping her tea. "I mean, we'd all hate it if we were forced back to where we came from — especially with our being 'dead' and all that — but Mizuho's always said that since our bodies were made here, here's where we stay." She shook her head. "Satomi doesn't agree with that at all. She feels that because our souls came from the dimension of the Republic, we have to go home within one solar year after we were brought here…or we get sent back automatically."

_**Which is incorrect, Minami Kaori**_, the Staff immediately cut in. _**The Te'a is the one constant within all of Creation. Per Sagussan mythological beliefs — to which you are all subjected to now that you are Avalonians — since your souls arose from the Te'a, it matters not which actual dimension or timeline you reside in. Since your bodies now anchor your souls to this dimension and timeline, here is where you will remain. I cannot understand why Noda Satomi refuses to consider otherwise.**_

"Maybe because of the incident at the lighthouse on Oki-shima?" Gretchen proposed; as soon as the golems had determined who the Friend of Dragons and her companions actually were, they had all read the _Battle Royale_ novel and manga series and seen the movies.

_**Most likely, Gretchen Streit. Given that particular analysis, Noda Satomi's conflicting feelings concerning Moroboshi Ataru seem far more comprehensible.**_

"What mixed feelings?" Elle asked.

_**Noda Satomi wishes to not initiate contact with Moroboshi Ataru, Elle Andreas…even if her bonding programming — like the Controller's — has activated concerning him.**_

Jaws dropped. "_Satomi_ and Ataru?!" Kaori exclaimed…before her eyes went wide as the second part of the Staff's message clicked in. "Wait! **_Mizuho_**** and Ataru?!**"

"That is SO unfair!" Megumi wailed. "I want to be with him, too!"

Both golems blinked on hearing that before they exchanged a smile, then moved to comfort their companions. "You'll always have us, Goshujin-sama!" Elle teased.

That made Mizuho's friends immediately blush…

* * *

Nearby…

"What are Miss Elle and Miss Gretchen doing?!"

"I dunno! But them two girls are definitely crystal-bloods!"

"Are they crazy?! What are they doing with them crystal-bloods?!"

"They might have been captured, Captain!"

On hearing that, the twenty-three other people in homespun butternut uniforms that had not been seen on the field of battle for well over a century all blinked.

"We'll rescue them and bring them back to Mister Karl and Miss Cathrin!"

The others all nodded as they braced themselves…

* * *

_**Etō Megumi, Minami Kaori…there is a problem.**_

Megumi and Kaori — as well as Elle and Gretchen — perked on hearing the Staff speak out. "What is it, Bō-san?" the former then asked.

_**I would advise you not to look so as to alert them that you are now aware of their presence, but there is a group of twenty-four female war golems possessed now by the spirits of daywalker vampires moving to attack you from a position 16.3 metres to your south. All of them were — when they were still normal human beings and not vampires — natives of the State of South Carolina at the time of the American Civil War. They formed a volunteer company of "cavalry" who assisted in communications and morale support duties until they were turned on the evening of 15 December 1862. By becoming vampires, they were literally frozen in time at your emotional age until their original bodies were destroyed on 11 May 1864, though their souls were preserved via horcruxi.**_

As Mizuho's best friends both gasped in horror on hearing that, Elle blinked. "Don't kill them!" she then hissed. "They're not bad girls! They're…"

Her voice failed her as her eyes teared. "What?" Kaori whispered.

"They're almost as emotionally damaged as Mitsuko-san is," the tall golem stated.

The younger women blinked before they exchanged looks. "If we let Mizuho go at them, she'll leave them as nothing but ashes!" Megumi hissed out.

«Dearest Megumi! Do you honestly believe I would do something like _that_?!» a familiar voice then echoed in all four women's heads, making Elle and Gretchen gape in shock.

"What if it was during a fight?" Kaori wondered.

A tired sigh answered her. «Aye, beloved Kaori, 'tis true,» Inada Mizuho answered from high in space. «Be patient and allow me to rescue our soon-to-be-sisters from their current state between life and death within bodies forged of clay in lieu of proper flesh-and-bone. To me, my friend! 'Tis the Wise Lord's work to be done this day!»

And in a flash of energy, the Staff of Gihan vanished…

* * *

"Wait!"

The others — now massed in two ranks of eight with the company sergeants and officers at their proper places ahead and behind the main body of troops — paused as they gazed on the leader of the Anderson County Amazons, Rachel Thornbridge. "What is it, Captain?" the company's first sergeant, Eleanor Reese, asked. "What's wrong?!"

"Something glowed close to where Miss Elle and Miss Gretchen are!" Rachel — who now looked as if she was a man despite the fact that her voice still had the high-pitched lilt of an adolescent — said as she pointed in the direction of where the older golems and their "captors" were. "It must be some evil thing the crystal-bloods did!"

"We charge?!" first lieutenant Annabelle Maxwell then asked.

Everyone then jolted on feeling a gentle wave of energy surge past them from behind. Before they could swing their cavalry sabres around to bear on whoever was trying to cowardly attack them from behind, the twenty-four daywalkers all cried out in shock as something seemed to literally pick them off the ground and elevate them into the air. As the vampires tried to force themselves free, gentle footfalls on the undergrowth made them pause as they turned and looked down to see a silver-haired girl their physical age walk into view, carrying a long metal staff with a crescent moon-shaped frame holding a glowing ball of crystal at one end, that topped with a small pike. The stranger then stopped and turned to gaze upon them, revealing an Oriental face pierced by sky blue eyes that seemed older than time even from a distance. She was dressed in a light blue uniform with a top similar to what a sailor would wear on the high seas — complete with crimson tie hanging from her collars — and a pleaded skirt that went to just above her knees, calf-length socks and slip-on shoes finishing the ensemble.

On seeing those well-formed legs and the hint of cleavage under her blouse, the Amazons all blinked as part of their minds — influenced as they were by mid-Nineteenth Century thinking when it came to how proper ladies should dress — railed at such a scandalous display of flesh…before something in their bodies seemed to clicked as programs that were placed into them despite their not being intended as their prototypes were fully keyed in. As groans that were a mixture of agony and delight escaped them, their captor seemed to blink for a moment before she shook her head in mute sympathy. "Lady Elle! Lady Gretchen!" she called out in accented English to somewhere behind her. "Methinks that when you meet with Noble Mistress Linn in the near future, you will have to advise her to be more careful in creating replacement bodies that certainly were not properly suited for such loyal and devoted natives of the beautiful Palmetto State!"

"Don't kill them, Mizuho-san!" Elle cried back, which made the Amazons seem to blink for a moment on recognizing that familiar voice. "They're all your age!"

"I can perceive that, my friend!"

With that, the platoon-sized "company" of daywalker vampires were tenderly lowered to the ground. Once they were on solid earth again, they seemed to blink for a moment…though none of them could find it within themselves to charge this alien woman — that she was a crystal-blood was obvious thanks to the mineral scent emanating from her — and do what they had intended to do when they chanced upon the scene of their friends having a picnic with two crystal-bloods. The woman with the staff casually approached Rachel, which made the young South Carolinian with the rusty red hair and the dark brown eyes — none of the Amazons had tapped into their vampire powers before they had been captured by this stranger — tense, though she didn't try to flee or attack. Which made the stranger smile…before she leaned in to gently kiss her on the lips!

The other Amazons gasped at the sight of such a provocative display of intimacy — and to another WOMAN at that! — while their leader seemed ready to collapse to her knees in shock. _That…that was my first ever kiss!_ a small part of Rachel squealed with a mixture of embarrassment and delight as she reached up with her free hand to feel her lips. _I never thought my first kiss would be so soft! So…tender…!_ While other parts of her railed to attack and kill this impudent alien woman — especially her vampiric side, which had made her run wild for nearly seventeen months as she moved to prey on both Yankee soldiers and escaping slaves until hit-wizards and hit-witches assigned to support the Military Division of the Mississippi under William Tecumseh Sherman caught her and her friends near Rocky Face Ridge in northwest Georgia after the Atlanta Campaign began, then destroyed them even if their souls had been saved by one of Adam Sewell's friends — the young girl she still was deep in her heart just swooned in delight that this very nice and pretty girl had treated her so kindly.

Before she could ask the stranger what her name was, the woman with the staff walked over place herself before the company first lieutenant to Rachel's right rear. As Annabelle blinked in surprise — though she, like the other Amazons, was just as taken aback at what they witnessed — the girl in the sailor suit-like uniform leaned up to kiss her, which made the bespectacled girl with the chocolate hair and the dark eyes nearly faint into Eleanor's arms. As her mind became a mad maelstrom of thoughts, the stranger gazed back towards the picnic site. "Kaori! Megumi! Come! Our new sisters have been deprived so much of tenderness, even a kiss leaves them simply and totally speechless! A little warmth shall do much to heal their long-wounded spirits!"

As she moved on to Eleanor while the company second lieutenant, Jane Gilmer, moved to help support the still-dazed Annabelle, the two younger women who had been with Elle and Gretchen ran over to join the Amazons and their new friend. Coming up to stand to either side of Rachel — who was starting to sway — the girl with the freckles and glasses then leaned up to whisper, "Taii-san, may we kiss your friends?"

That made Rachel gasp in shocked surprise at such a polite request before she shakily nodded. On seeing that, the newcomers giggled as they kissed her on the cheeks before they moved over to start on her subordinates, nearly making Rachel faint…

* * *

Schloss Greifswald, that moment (local time: A half-hour before lunch)…

"If it is anything, Josef, I'm sorry that those you saved had to suffer like that."

Hearing those words — which, coming from the Kentucky-born lawyer who now resided at the Greasy Grass Settlement, always came from the heart — from a man he considered one of his most successful experiments before the brutal lessons of World War Two finally made him wake up to the amount of pain he had unleashed over the millennia, Josef von Taserich lightly smiled before sipping his coffee. "You are kind as always, Abraham," the immortal Prussian nobleman stated. "You are sure they are all well?"

"Those I met yesterday in Diagon appeared quite well," Abraham Lincoln stated with a nod as he gazed out the sitting room windows at the back lawn of the property, a cup of tea in hand. "Before I came here to meet you, I asked Mollie Bean to go to England to liaise with Elizabeth Gibbon and learn the full state of her command." He scowled as he added, "I also decided it was high time to correct that little mistake concerning her proper rank. I sent a missive to Barack in Washington to see if he would be so kind as to release a magical executive order concerning that for her and others."

Taserich nodded. For the longest time, it had been the policy of all members of both the old ICW and the modern ICMC to demand that there be no full-time magical military forces; the raising of such — as demonstrated by the mobilization of the Magische Reichsarmee just before Germany invaded Poland in 1939 — was usually seen as grounds for war. In concurrence with that, it was the practice of those member-states of the International Confederation to have those officers who had won battlefield promotions to the flag ranks reduced to field grades as a way of diminishing their importance in the post-war order of things; the theory behind that was that doing such would ensure no permanent peacetime magical army could be raised before outside powers clued into what was going on, thus preventing a magical "arms race" and another war.

In Mollie Bean's case, she had ultimately been given the theatre rank of brigadier general as deputy commander — and in the last few months of the war, acting commander — of the 7th Cavalry Division (Magical), the main fighting formation of the United States Army Magical Corps in the European theatre. When the war was over, she lost her theatre rank and was mustered out of active service as a captain into the Magical Corps Reserve, which is where she remained until she formally resigned her commission on the same day she fully retired from the United States Marshal Service in 1948. The only country that hadn't done that sort of thing to its senior magical leaders after Grindelwald's War was the Soviet Union, as witness the case of Svetlána Múromeca; the Bloody She-bear of Siberia was still seen as a general of the army in the Reserve Special Magical Troops of the Russian Federation even if she had been confined in "strategic reserve" at the Spemát since 1954. Despite howls of protest from the ICMC in Geneva about adhering to proper international law, the leaders in Moscow — not to mention the leaders in other former Soviet republics who had personnel that obtained general's stars during Grindelwald's War — refused to see their nation's most prominent magical heroes "disgraced" in such a fashion.

"What will you do about Mister Grindelwald?" Lincoln then asked.

Taserich smirked. "I will make Gellert realize that I do not care to have my gifts abused in such a manner," he coldly stated as his eyes seemed to glow with the dark power that had kept him alive for twenty-five millennia, since the days when the Earth was still gripped in an ice age and the Old Ones were running rampant over those small bands of Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers and the last survivors of the Neanderthals then alive on the planet. "I told him well before the end of the war that I would see to it that Elizabeth and her friends would survive to know peace. Why he didn't come here — or send someone here after he was captured at Nurmengard — to read the notes I left about what I learned of the Niphentaxians and the Avalonians, I don't understand."

"He probably obliviated himself of that sort of information to protect them."

Both turned as Harry Potter came up to join them. Gazing on the young wizard who had dealt with the latest dark lord to have ravaged parts of Europe in recent memory, Taserich blinked before he turned to look outside. "There were other ways for Gellert to protect Elizabeth and her friends from prosecution than that, young man."

The Man-Who-Won nodded. While he was unnerved to be standing in the very presence of the Undying Lord — a man whose total power had defied all attempts at understanding it by magical researchers for centuries — he didn't allow that to control his emotions. Besides, World War Two had been over for decades and Taserich had — according to Meagan Schwartz — long ago made his peace with the only two people who equalled him in overall power and who opposed him during that war, Dean Raeburn and Vladímir Tayčéško. "Yes, that's true," he breathed out. "And given how much the Black Maidens all still look up to him as the man who inspired their own quest for equality, it'll break their hearts to know that Master Gellert could have seen them released from their gestation chambers anytime after the ICMC cleared the slate in 1950. All it would have needed was a quick call to General Raeburn; her Power Jewel could have freed them unharmed once she saw what David Wisden's Quickening did to the gestation tubes. We could have even kept it secret from the Niphentaxians to avoid problems from that quarter; all the observers who were in Europe and the surrounding territories when the war started were dealt with by you, so there were no witnesses that could have reported back to their superiors that 'escaped slaves' were running loose on Earth."

"You accept it with ease."

"Sir, we've dealt with thousand year-old vampires, Immortals, yourself, Lord Rjazán', General Raeburn, the Steel Angels, metahumans of many types…let alone long-lived wizards like Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel. I honestly don't understand why is it more magicals just can't accept these sorts of things. As my sister is so fond of saying all the time, to people like us, 'weird is normal.'" Harry shook his head.

The older men chuckled. "You magicals have always seen a need to keep things — to borrow the German phrase — _in Ordnung_ when it comes to your surroundings and all you deal with, Mister Potter," Lincoln stated. "Yes, your command over that power gives you the ability to do amazing things. But because your ancestors could pass on those gifts to their children and grandchildren, they had the ability to create their own indigenous culture long before the Statute of Secrecy was even conceived and ensured such cultures could develop independently of any overt normal influence. Creating one's own culture implies a sense of order that must be maintained. Anything that assaults that sense of order cannot be tolerated. That is very much true in the case of normal society. There has been conflict of all types since the day the first societies were formed when our gracious host was still a very young man. That is the nature of being human…and it doesn't matter what type of 'human' you are."

"Indeed, it might have helped humanity if the ability to pass on such power to one's children could not be transmitted that way," Taserich added. "Similar to the way the Yizibajohei view their lives even now, two thousand years after their Dawn of Power." He smirked. "Then again, the mesonium influence on their lives has come to guarantee it. Since one's 'gift' arises from the remnants of the Seeker's Forge, one cannot be born a metahuman and must present oneself before the Forge to receive one's gift even when it is possible to pass on the influence of such gifts to one's children. Yes, the various line-names and the memories of previous lives are preserved, but there is no genetic passing on of such powers to one's children." He smirked. "The Avalonians who were moved to that planet recently might change things, but I doubt it."

"Could that happen here?"

People turned to see Buffy Summers standing nearby, a calm and relaxed look on the vampire slayer's face. "I believe so, Buffy," Taserich answered as he gave the American woman a pitying look. _'Buffy?!' What on Earth was her mother thinking of when she named her child THAT?!_ he mused before gazing out the window. "Not as violent or as sudden as the Dawn of Power, but it will happen. Human evolution demands it."

That made both Harry and Buffy nod. While it was not commonly known even in their circles, the events that had rocked Yiziba two millennia ago known under the overall title "The Dawn of Power" were nothing short of a planet-wide _**apocalypse**_ on a scale that made what was predicted in the Book of Revelations and other such "end of humanity" legends like Ragnarok look like garden tea parties in comparison. In the space of a decade, the Yizibajohei — then numbering two billion people — had taken a massive leap forward on the evolutionary scale from being a normal race of humanoids into a race of true _metahumans_ with powers that spanned from what was normal staple in North American superhero comics to the truly cosmic to the mega-magical to the psionic and everything else in between. That had been in response to the existence of violent dictatorships ruling a large sector of the planet matching the evil of Nazi Germany under Hitler and Soviet Russia under Stálin, which drove the oppressed to delve into the ancient legends of their people and try to discovery a way to free themselves.

They found it in the very core of their own planet.

The remnants of the Seeker's Forge.

To the Yizibajohei, the Great Crystal of Power.

On touching it and obtaining their Gifts, the first generation of Yizibajohei metahumans — usually driven by dark fantasies that were often the only escape from dreary and painful lives — went on a titanic blitz that ripped apart their home nations in an orgy of sheer chaos that couldn't be stopped no matter what. Even those nations which were democratic soon succumbed to the metahuman revolution as governments tried to form defensive forces to halt the oncoming tide…only to see those forces overwhelmed by the attackers or simply subverted from within. Eventually, a mass famine resulted as society totally broke down and everyone was forced to fend for themselves. All the things that had mattered before the Dawn of Power — Yiziba was at the equivalent stage of early 1940s technology on a Terran scale — had become worthless. Money was valueless when one could simply break into a bank to seize it. State secrets couldn't be kept secret with the presence of powerful telepaths who could learn them with but a thought. Travel restrictions couldn't be imposed against people strong enough to break down walls, to say anything of those who could simply teleport past them. And loyalty to one's birth nation was made ultimately meaningless thanks to beings who could now perceive the whole vastness of the Multiverse with the ease one might read a book.

Worst of all, metahuman powers simply did nothing to stop human aggression.

Finally, three very wise people — the first generation of the Circle of Thought — came together to create a framework for which a society that had plunged into total anarchy could continue to survive. The production of all the basic necessities of life were automated to ensure no one would starve. A planet-wide construction engineering network, also robotized, was put into place to repair the damage fighting between metahumans always provoked. Vast nature preserves that would have made Theodore Roosevelt weep at their size and beauty were set up to help rehabilitate those parts of Yiziba ravaged for centuries by industrialization. And — to help channel the urge to engage in "fight scenes" that overcame the metahumans — a worldwide reality television program simply called _The Show_ was launched that would help those who needed to drain off some adrenaline could learn of battles so they could join in.

It wasn't a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination…but given the total and complete transformation that had overcome Yiziba and its inhabitants in such a short time, it was by far the best solution that could be devised at the time.

And ever since that time…

Buffy shook her head as she and Harry exchanged a knowing look. Over the years since the Dawn of Power, all those who had encountered the Yizibajohei had always come away quaking in their boots and praying to whatever deities they worshipped that those horrible nasty beings would never darken their lives again. Not even those of the Old Ones who tried to exert their influence over that world — the ancestors of the modern Yizibajohei had actually been transplanted there from Earth over twenty thousand years ago by some unknown party; many now suspected Fourth Republic Sagussan involvement — had survived such an encounter unscathed. Given that Yizibajohei metahuman power was based on mesonium — which was _poison_ to any of the Old Ones — any hope of subverting the natives of that world was bound to fail. And given that one reported Yizibajohei line — known by the battle-name "_**Weaver**_" — could CREATE and DESTROY dimensions and timelines with the ease of turning the pages of the book, pressing it would risk the Old Ones being literally TRAPPED in their native dimension for all Eternity!

If what had happened to the Urusians 250 years ago didn't teach people things…!

"I can see where Adam and his supporters are coming from," Taserich then mused.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked.

"Evolution, my dear," the immortal Prussian nobleman stated. "For one who has lived — and yes, it is 'living' in my eyes even if you don't agree with me — for so long, Adam has seen how much humanity has evolved since the days of the First Dynasty in Egypt where he and his sister were born. The existence of Yiziba has been known in certain circles here on Earth since well before the Urusians popularized the phrases 'They Who Must Never Be Named' and the 'Unspeakable Place' — or variations of same — when it comes to referring to that planet and its people." As Lincoln and Harry laughed and Buffy snickered, Taserich smirked as he added, "When she and her siblings led the attack on Phentax Twelve to liberate the Avalonians, Negako effectively forced people like Adam to face what the leaders of Yiziba confronted two millennia ago when they found themselves dealing with a situation they couldn't hope to control. That would naturally scare anyone who is used to living their lives in a certain way."

"Like the way the magical blue-bloods in Europe hated to deal with 'mudbloods' because they were bringing in thoughts and ideas that didn't compute," Buffy noted as she made finger-quotes on saying that despised and hated term for normal-borns.

"Yes," her host affirmed with a nod. "But, as I said before, human evolution is an ongoing thing. Deannette's school at her family home in Canada demonstrates that. Those normal-borns being invited to places like Hogwarts demonstrate that. The amount of people who are allowing themselves to become Avalonians by either the exchange of bodies or the exchange of blood also demonstrate that. It's far too little, far too late. Adam may cause damage…but he will ultimately fail even if he escapes tomorrow's raid on Azkaban. I'm sure Abraham will make sure he doesn't do that."

"That I will do, Josef," Lincoln vowed.

"You won't be alone, Uncle Abe."

The former president smiled as he gazed on Buffy, whom he had met sometime after the fall of Sunnydale in 2003 and the Scooby Gang had relocated themselves to Cleveland to help keep the Hellmouth located there from opening up wide. When some minor demons had tried to contact some daywalker vampires to forge an alliance in a way of dealing with the massive army of Slayers that Willow Rosenburg effectively created, that attracted the attention of the Rail-Splitter. Lincoln — whose existence had been known to the Watcher's Council since the last time meson-powered vampire hunter and demon-powered vampire slayer had collided in Ohio's largest city in 1874…though the specifics had been kept top secret due to the former president's affiliation with the Undying Lord; Rupert Giles had only heard the nickname of the being who had scared even Angelus — immediately swept in to make sure those he had once chased off the continent over six score years earlier didn't get "uppity." There, he encountered Buffy, not to mention three of her chief lieutenants, Faith Lehane, Violet Day and Ng Chìuhngōn.

Put simply, Cleveland became a VERY quiet place when it concerned the undead after the Slayers were given the chance to learn some of the Rail-Splitter's tricks.

And — in a nod to how freed slaves came to call the Great Emancipator during the Civil War — the Slayers as a whole began to playfully call Abraham Lincoln "Uncle Abe."

Except for Chìuhngōn, who — in a proper show of respect to such a wise and experienced man as he — came to address the former president as "_Yàhngūng Daaihyè_."

"No, I don't expect to be, Buffy. Especially if the Vinur Drekar has something to say about it," Lincoln mused as he gave the younger woman a kind smile.

She nodded before sighing as she gazed towards the entrance of the sitting room. "Just hope Willow doesn't get lost in that library of yours, Mister Taserich," she mused.

That made the others in the room chuckle. After Taserich received his guests in the wake of his killing the demons and vampires who came to the Schloss to kill Meagan Schwartz, he allowed the others who had come with the Man-Who-Won and the Elder Slayer the opportunity to take a tour of his home and visit his personal library with Meagan as the guide. Naturally, Willow Rosenburg and Thérèse Peverell jumped at the chance to get at the scrolls and books there…much to the despair of Xander Harris, who bemoaned the fact that the Scooby Gang's resident witch would be utterly insufferable for _**months**_ to come. These days, Willow carried a dataPADD with her that had massive memory storage capacity and was fitted with visual scanning functions — a special gift from Harry's old housemate Mun Aesup — to ensure she could get what she wanted without the need to spend a mountain's worth of change at a library's photocopying machine.

At the time the tour began, Abraham Lincoln was brought to Rügen by Dean Raeburn before the latter headed back to Canada so she could put in a day's work at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa getting the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry restored as an active and functional combat arm of the Canadian Army. Much to everyone's surprise when Harry had asked Lincoln where he had been the previous night, the immortal former president confessed to having stayed at the Raven, a nightclub in Paris owned by a French nightwalker vampire named Janette DuCharme which also served as the base of operations for Lucien LaCroix, a native of ancient Rome who had been turned around the time of the Pompeii disaster in 79 C.E. by his own daughter and — outside the famous Vlad Ṭepeṣ himself — was seen as one of the most respected hunters of the night still "alive" today. When asked why he would associate with such a man, Lincoln replied, "I do not and will never care for a vampire's eating habits, my friends…but unlike Mister Sewell and those like him, _Monsieur_ LaCroix knows when not to _**push**_ things."

Which made a world of sense in the end. Vampires needed blood to live; that was a simple fact of their undead "lives." Because they had been humans — either magical or non-magical — before being turned, vampires were attracted to human blood most of all since it was rich with the earth magic a sentient being could always tap into. Even if many of the undead — save for those demon-possessed vampires whose souls were buried far deep in their subconscious minds — had tried over the years to foster the habit of consuming animal blood instead as a way of not risking seeing yet another human turned into one of them if it got out of control, the drive to take the blood of "living" humans was still there. However, even if the population of normal humans seemed nearly unending, having vampires go crazy in seeking human blood would ultimately be counter-productive; the rise of hunters like Abraham Lincoln always resulted from such.

People like Lucien LaCroix and Vlad Ṭepeṣ understood that and ensured those who looked up to them for leadership in the worldwide vampire community always acknowledged that.

Adam Sewell had never accepted that…and had paid dearly for it.

Though not to the full extent that Abraham Lincoln had hoped for back in 1863.

"So he made a horcrux, did he?" Buffy then asked.

Taserich nodded. "He helped invent that particular process. Shortly after he was turned and had turned his sister, Adam was approached by magical servants of one of the early pharaohs of the First Dynasty to see if there was a way to allow their souls to be anchored to the mortal plain to ensure those who didn't care for magicals couldn't prevent their enjoying their proper rewards in the afterlife." At Harry's surprised look, the Undying Lord smirked. "Yes, Harry, rhabdophobia was alive and well back then. And given the strength and influence of the native religion at the time, the very idea of being _denied_ the chance to enjoy immortality in the afterlife was a frightening thought to such people. So — since Adam was effectively a corporeal immortal due to his being one of the first daywalkers as well as possessing knowledge of magic — they felt he was the best person to ask. He researched it by observing people like his sister and other vampires. In doing that, he noted that their souls always fractured whenever they killed someone without turning them." He shrugged. "After that, it was quite easy to conclude. Find a way to make the soul fracture as clean a 'break' as possible while still maintaining a link to the core soul, then discover a way to remove the fragment from the body and store it in a containing vessel that could be hid away somewhere so that the core soul would remain anchored to this plane. Given the studies in soul magic being done at the time, it was quite easy."

"Thus, when I 'destroyed' him, Mister Sewell still remained amongst the 'living,' so to speak. As did his sister and whomever of their friends he performed this ritual for." A tired sigh escaped Lincoln. "I would suspect a fair number of people who we believed were destroyed during the Civil War were saved in that matter." As Harry shook his head and Buffy scowled, the former president added, "Hence, the reason they needed to go to Russia to learn of the location of those war golems General Gibbon's people made from General Múromeca. Golems are magical, thus able to bond with a vampire's soul. It gives them a physical body of sorts they could manipulate without the necessity of fighting the dominance of a living person's soul. Still, such a process would have disadvantages. Golems of the type Major Heinrich's team created during the Second World War are physically based on silicon and silicate-derived molecules. That's not a natural material for living creatures here on Earth as it is on some other planets I'm sure Dean has encountered over the years. Since the core power that makes a vampire what it is must be anchored to natural flesh, being in something like that…"

"It'll be like having a permanent case of the hives," Buffy concluded as she crossed her arms. "They must be going totally nuts right about now, especially if they got those golem bodies shortly after the marshal died in that Spemát place."

"If she's dead."

Eyes locked on Harry. "You seem confidant of that, Harry," Taserich noted.

He smirked. "The marshal's a survivor, sir. One couldn't live in _Russia_ of all places after the _**October Revolution**_ — and ESPECIALLY after Stálin came into power given what a paranoid git he was! — and not be a real survivor. If she went to Hogwarts, she'd be a Slytherin for sure." Harry shrugged. "Yeah, I really came to like her in the month she helped Tsukiko-sensei boost my magical levels after Sirius died. Sure, she was one scary lady deep down, but once you got to know and understand her, she was alright." He then chuckled. "Besides, anyone who could toss Vernon Dursley around like she did was okay in my books back then, even if Sensei did help get me emancipated."

"Oh! Okay, Harry! Make with the 'splainy!" Buffy urged.

Lincoln visibly winced. "Buffy! _Must_ you continue to mangle the language like that?! That hurts my ears every time I hear you say something like that!" he protested.

Harry laughed as Buffy pouted and Taserich shook his head…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) _Battle Royale_ character and situation notes:

**Etō Megumi** and **Minami Kaori** are, as indicated above, Inada Mizuho's best friends. As a group, all three girls are known by the collective term "Daydreamers." Megumi hails from a normal family with an older sister who was rumoured to be very promiscuous (which wasn't true); she was also pretty much a sheltered girl as she had never before travelled away from home overnight before the "school trip" that ended on Oki-shima. Kaori is a girl who suffered from acne scars; in the manga, she got nicknamed "Pizza Face" as a result. She is also a fan of pop music; her favourite band is **Flip Side** and she admires the group's lead singer **Kenzaki Jun'ya**. During their run through _The Program_, both girls were killed quite early; Megumi fell in "Sōma Mitsuko" (manga episode #8), while Kaori was killed in "Persuasion" (manga episode #30).

**Sōma Mitsuko**, **Shimizu Hirono** and **Yahagi Yoshimi** formed the "bad girl" gang in the Shiroiwa class; they frequently engaged in petty larceny and prostitution. Mitsuko is ultimately a victim of child-rape, having been systematically assaulted by her stepfather and mother from when she was nine until she arranged for their deaths at the hands of the Yakuza some years later…but by then, it was too late; her core personality had fractured horribly and she had come to believe that sex was the solution to everything. In effect, the prey became the predator; while she was quite street-smart, Mitsuko had next to NO trust towards men of any sort save her long-absent father, who left her life when she was a child. Hirono is a remarkably mature and perceptive girl who had engaged in — atop what she did for Mitsuko — recreational drug use…though she would NEVER go to the wild extremes Mitsuko did when it came to dealing with potential victims; the concept of killing for the sake of killing repulses her. Yoshimi is a girl with VERY low self-esteem that fell into Mitsuko's orbit because she was being picked on by other people. During _The Program_, Mitsuko elected to go all out to win; she would eventually kill six people on Oki-shima. Megumi was her first victim while Yoshimi was her third; the latter would die in "Forfeiture" (manga episode #21). Mitsuko herself would fall in "Where The Gun Points" (manga episode #99). Hirono would die in "Existence" (manga episode #37).

**Tendō Mayumi** was one of the first victims of the Shiroiwa class' run through _The Program_; she would be found dead in "Other Side of the Door" (manga episode #5). Not much was revealed about her in the manga save for her having once helped organize a school dance. In the novel, Mayumi was believed to have engaged in "telephone dating" (known more properly as **Enjo-kōsai** ["compensated dating"]), which caused some to regard her as a slut. Hirono knew this was true, though Mayumi always behaved properly while with others in class.

**Noda Satomi** is the smartest girl of the class; she took pride in schoolwork and helped other people out in the class when needed, though she didn't participate in many group activities as she was a loner despite her being friends with many of the girls in the class. She was the one who provoked the "Lighthouse Massacre," which was depicted in "Doubt," "Crevice" and "Collapse" (manga episodes #69-71); Satomi herself would be killed at the end of "Collapse." My depiction of her also acknowledges that she is something of an insomniac; that was a trait shown in the novel and movie.

**Nakagawa Noriko** was one of the two survivors of the Shiroiwa class' run through _The Program_ and the female star of _BR_. A very optimistic girl, she never gave up hope that her classmates and friends would survive the horrors of Oki-shima. She also was the only person who refused to take up a weapon until nearly the end, when she used a pistol to defend her co-survivor, **Nanahara Shūya**, from the class' most proficient "player," **Kiriyama Kazuo**. In the manga, she and Shūya eventually would escape to America after hiding out in Japan for some weeks after the events on Oki-shima; in the universe of this story, she was whisked out of the country immediately, but would "die" en route to freedom thanks to the Staff of Gihan. Because of her survival, her peers elected her as Elder Mother of their group of Terran-turned-Avalonians.

The background story concerning how the **Greater East Asia Republic** (_Dai-tōa Kyōwakoku_) came into being at the end of World War Two is my creation. That was never explained in either the _BR_ novel or manga; in the movies, the setting was in a modern Japan that had fallen into hard economic times.

The number of times _The Program_ is said to be run here is my invention. When I read the _BR_ manga, I confused facts concerning the operation. In the manga, fifty separate middle school classes were nominated every year to participate in _The Program_, with one class being selected to perform their "grave civic duty" for the nation. I changed that to have _The Program_ be run **_fifty_** times a year, done once every weekend save the weekends before and after New Year's Day. The reason behind this will be explained in future stories.

2) Translations: **Bō-san** — Mister Staff; **Therme** — Literally "Thermal Spring" (using this as part of a place name is similar to the Japanese use of the term **Onsen** before the place name of a hot spring resort); **Daitōryō** — President (of a nation-state); **Taishō** — Navy admiral/Army general/Air force air chief marshal (NATO rank code OF-9); **Guten Morgen** — Good Morning; **Liebste** — Dearest One; **Geliebte** — Beloved; **Schwesternschaften der Hitler-Jugend** — Literally "Sisterhood of the Hitler Youth," the pre-1930 name of the League of German Girls; **Mädchengruppe** — Group of Maidens; **Reichswehr** — Literally "Defence of the Reich," this was the name of the German armed forces from 1919-35 when it was replaced by the Wehrmacht; **Sturmabteilung** — Literally "Storm Detachment" (short-form **SA**), these were the infamous "Brownshirts" who served as the Nazi Party's primary paramilitary force until they were effectively superseded by the SS during the **Knight of the Long Knives** (30 June-2 July 1934), though the SA remained active until the end of World War Two; **Mutti** — Mom/Mommy; **Shōsa** — Navy lieutenant commander/Army major/Air Force squadron leader (NATO rank code OF-3); **Goshujin-sama** — Master; **Taii** — Navy lieutenant/Army captain/Air Force flight lieutenant (NATO rank code OF-2); **In Ordnung** — In order/Alright/Okay; **Yàhngūng Daaihyè** — A mixed honorific in Cantonese combining the terms for (in order) "kind lord" (what one uses to address a person who is older than the speaker) and "father's elder brother."

3) The **Swinford Preceptory** was a real monastery. It was first established by the **Knights Hospitaller** (also known as the **Order of Saint John**), a sovereign Christian military order in service to the Pope during the Middle Ages which would eventually evolve into separate orders thanks to the Protestant Reformation and the eventual weakening of the Pope's position as a sovereign head of state in comparison to other European leaders. The actual date of establishment of the Swinford Preceptory is not known, but it occurred prior to 1199. It would eventually — as noted above — be removed from the control of the Knights in 1540 during the time when **King Henry VIII** (1491-1547, ruled 1509 to death) launched the **Dissolution of the Monasteries** to remove all influence from Rome on England by closing down those sorts of establishments to appropriate their income, dispose of their physical assets and provide for their former members and functions.

4) The **Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler** (literally "Adolf Hitler's Protection Squad Bodyguard Regiment") (short-form **LSSAH**) was the personal bodyguard for the Führer from 1923 until the surrender of Germany in 1945. Originally a brigade in size, it would eventually earn place of primacy amongst the forces of the **Waffen-SS** ("Armed SS") as the **1st SS Panzer Division**. This formation was involved in the battles for Poland in 1939, the invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 and the invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941 before it participated in the attack on the Soviet Union. It was pulled off the Eastern Front after the **Battle of Kursk** (5 July-23 August 1943), then sent to Italy to stabilize the situation after the fall of Benito Mussolini. That fall, it was sent back to help deal with the Soviets; by that time, it was a full armoured division. However, by then, the oncoming storm from Russia was just too much for the Germans; by the time the LSSAH was withdrawn to Belgium in the spring of 1944, it was a hollow wreck. By the time it was reformed, the invasion of Normandy had begun; the division would remain active on the Western Front until after the **Battle of the Bulge** (16 December 1944-25 January 1945). Once more sent east to help with the Soviets, the division would finish the war trying to surrender to the Americans at **Steyr** near Vienna; those who didn't make it across the border between Upper and Lower Austria at the town of **Enns** would eventually be marched off to Siberia. Like other elements of the Waffen-SS, members of the LSSAH were involved in war crimes, especially against the Jews of Eastern Europe.

5) **Horst Wessel** (1907-30) was a Nazi "martyr." A native of **Bielefeld** in Westphalia, he was a pastor's son who joined the SA in 1926 after his political views became too radical for even mainstream right-wing parties to tolerate. His claim to fame — other than his murder when he was a **Sturmführer** ("storm leader") in SA Troop 34 based in Berlin — was to author the words to the poem _Die Fahne hoch_ ("The Flag on High"), which was later adopted to an old folk song or an Imperial German naval tune; the lyrics spoke of the continued need to resist all those who would oppose the Nazi rise to power, especially the Communists. After 1933, the song — renamed _Horst-Wessel-Lied_ ("Horst Wessel's Song") — was made the co-national anthem of Germany, played alongside the first stanza of the _Deutschlandlied_ ("Song of Germany"). When World War Two ended, the song was banned across Germany and Wessel's memorial and grave in Berlin — which fell in the Soviet sector of the city — would be destroyed; it is believed Wessel's remains were also destroyed to ensure that the grave would never become a neo-Nazi shrine.

6) **Lava Schnapps** are the German version of firewhiskey.

7) The **Anderson County Amazons** are based on an interesting little side-story to the American Civil War I recently discovered. In Tennessee's **Rhea County** (located fifty kilometres northeast of Chattanooga), there was established a volunteer "company" of "cavalry" manned totally by young _**women**_! This group, the **Rhea County Spartans**, were formed in 1862 as a way of allowing relatives of those actually serving on the front lines — usually young women in their teens and twenties — to help with the war effort without going to the need of actually disguising themselves as men (as Mollie Bean did in North Carolina) to fight. The Spartans — which was actually a platoon in size — normally engaged in morale-boosting exercises, delivering care packages to the troops to the front from civilians well beyond the lines. When the war finally came to the area of Chattanooga, the Spartans may have engaged in some spying for Confederate forces…which saw them arrested by Union forces in April of 1865 at the orders of a local Unionist officer. However, the commanding general of the garrison in Chattanooga let the Spartans go after extracting an oath to the Union from them; he would later demand that the unit that the captain who arrested the girls — all manned by Tennessee loyalists — be removed from the area because of their lack of proper discipline, especially with the war coming to a close and the efforts to reunite the shattered nation had to begin in earnest. The Spartans returned home and moved on with their lives; unlike proper units of the Confederacy, they never had reunions.

As an aside, **Anderson County** in South Carolina lies on the Savannah River that forms the border between the Palmetto State and Georgia, 110 kilometres west-northwest from Columbia and 150 kilometres east-northeast of Atlanta.

Also, **Rocky Face Ridge** was the scene of a battle between the forces of the Union **Military Department of the Mississippi** under Major General **William Tecumseh Sherman** (1820-91) and the Confederate **Army of Tennessee** under General **Joseph E. Johnston** (1807-91) between 7-13 May 1864 in Georgia thirty kilometres southeast of Chattanooga. This was the opening battle of the **Atlanta Campaign** which would eventually see Sherman and his troops march through Georgia to the Atlantic by year's end, thus helping ensure Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as President of the United States, guaranteeing a final Union victory.

8) In both my fanfic story _The Saga of Coyote and the Tempest_ and _The Doctor Is In_ storyline at the Anime Add-venture, I had **Suzumiya Haruhi** (of the light novel series written by Tanigawa Nagaru) be the **Weaver**, the Mistress of Time and Space. Unlike **Infinity**, the Weaver — who is also a reality warper — can ONLY create, modify and/or destroy actualy timelines that are based on events that actually happened in the "base" reality this particular metahuman operates in; s/he cannot create something simply out of nothing as Infinity could.

9) **Ng Chìuhngōn** is the Cantonese way (using Yale Romanization) of writing a name rendered in Mandarin as **Wú Cháo'ān** (using Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Romanization). She is the character played by Kristy Wu known to _Buffy the Vampire Slayers_ fans by the spelling "Chao-ahn." This character first appeared in the seventh season episode "First Date." As she only speaks Cantonese, I rendered her name using the local pronunciation.

10) Finally, a note about Buffy Summers' comment at the end of this part: The term "**Make With the 'Splainy**" is a popular phrase used in _BTVS_ fan fiction stories. However, the phrase as is never appeared on television…though the word **'Splainy** (as a slang version of "Explain") by itself DID show up in a conversation between Buffy and Angel in the series finale, "Chosen."


	15. The Siberian She-Bear Comes to Lundy

The Leaky Cauldron in London, lunchtime (Berlin time: An hour after lunch)…

"And you're SURE no one came into my room since I went to Germany yesterday?!"

Hannah Abbott rapidly nodded her head. "More than sure, Professor Bean!" she assured the older woman now standing at the threshold leading into her private room; Tom Dodderidge had gladly made sure that Mollie Bean would be able to use the guest room right next to Abraham Lincoln's. "I don't recall seeing ANYONE come here. Especially carrying a bag like that!" She indicated the camouflage bag on the bed in the middle of the guest room. "Danni, did you or any of the other elves see anything?"

The cute house elf standing next to her beloved Mistress Hannah shook her head. "No, Mistress! Danni didn't see anyone come into Mistress Captain Mollie's room! None of the house elves saw anyone come into Mistress Captain Mollie's room!" She then peered into the room to gaze on the bag there. "There is no magic on that bag…"

"What's going on here?"

Everyone turned as the commanding officer of the Second Battalion of the Schwarze Mädchen came up to join them. The woman born Diana Daniela _Freifrau_ von Meißen zum Oberspreewald — as noted late last night, the noble honorific to her name would now have to be changed to _Fürstin_ due to her being confirmed as the newest Countess of Droitwitch; whether or not she would add on to her extended name the phrase "und Martin zu Droitwitch" had yet to be decided — was in the proper camouflage uniform of an officer in the German Army, the silver wreathed twin pip stars of an _Oberstleutnant_ on her shoulders. A pixie-cute woman with curly dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, she was an alumnus of Greifinswald from the Mistresses Class that graduated a year after Livia Dietrich; she was a native of Senftenberg in Brandenburg forty kilometres north-northeast of Dresden. Diana — nicknamed "DeeDee" by the British Black Maidens from the initials of her given and middle names — was a cunning, wicked dueller who earned the epithet "Black Baroness of Brandenburg" both because of her combat skills AND her ability to behave with even MORE arrogant snobbishness than the magical blue-bloods she had been fighting; being raised as the elder daughter of a long-line Prussian _Junker_ family helped there. Those who had fought this woman often found themselves asking what hurt worse: Her personalized cell-rupturing hexes or the storm of biting insults she cast on the arrogant pricks she faced because she had been born a "mudblood."

"Someone delivered me a present and no one noticed who brought it in, DeeDee," Mollie stated as she nodded towards the bag on her bed, which made Diana's eyebrow arch. She had always respected Diana von Meißen; the Brandenburger struck her as a German version of a properly-raised Southern lady from Virginia like any of Robert E. Lee's daughters. Given that Diana would take her oath of service as a member of the British Wizengamot later today, she could teach the local blue-bloods true civilized behaviour even if the majority of the troublemakers that had been disrupting things in this country for years were now either dead, in Gonebren, in Azkaban or had been marginalized for good.

That made Diana's eyes widen slightly as she watched the older woman step into the room, drawing out her wand as she did a quick field diagnostic charm over the bag. After noting that there was nothing there, Mollie breathed out. "Must have been some metahuman. Probably a teleporter supported by a telepath," she mused.

"We didn't sense anything, _Frau Generalmajorin_," Diana stated.

"Doubt you would, DeeDee. Those metas who go to Dean Raeburn's school in Canada are trained to be as stealthy as Lady Negako, even those non-Canadians who go up there to learn their stuff," Mollie stated before she reached over to the envelope placed atop the bag, flipping it around to see what was written there. And it was shocking:

**BG M.M. BEAN, DCG 7 CD(M)**

On sensing the surprise emanate from Mollie's heart, Diana came over to gaze over the other girl's shoulder. A moment later, she translated, "'Brigadier General Margaret Miranda Bean, Deputy Commanding General 7th Cavalry Division (Magical).'" She nodded. "Well, it's about time someone decided to properly acknowledge your rank."

"Wasn't she only a captain, Diana?" Hannah asked.

"That was her peacetime rank, Hannah," Diana advised. "In the war, she was given the 'theatre rank' — a brevet rank, in other words — of brigadier general by the time the fight at Nurmengard happened. I never understood why is it people who earned general's stars on the battlefield were never allowed to keep them when the fighting stopped. At least the Soviets did that for people like _Generalfeldmarschall_ Múromeca."

Mollie sighed before opening the envelope. Inside were three pieces of paper stapled together, the top one coming from the Secretary of the Army in Washington:

SPECIAL ORDERS (MAGICAL) 1-7  
21 July 2010  
_The following officer is promoted within the Reserve Officers List in the Magical Corps, United States Army as indicated:_  
**Authority:** Executive Order (Magical) 13548 dated 21 July 2010  
**Name/Branch:** BEAN, MARGARET MIRADA, MCUSA  
**Grade Promoted To:** BRIGADIER GENERAL (O-7)  
**Effective Date (Retroactive):** 1 January 1946  
**Seniority Date (Retroactive):** 2 February 1945  
BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT  
_(signed)  
John M. McHugh  
Secretary of the Army_

On reading that, Diana smiled as she snapped to attention and offered a salute. "May I offer my congratulations, _meine Generalmajorin_," she stated with proper solemnity.

Mollie blinked before she nodded. "Um…thanks! I think!" she breathed out before she flipped the top page to scan the notarized copy of Magical Executive Order 13548…on official White House letterhead with the special stamp at the bottom of the page that served as the American equivalent of the phrase _La Reine Le Veult_ that would alert all British magicals that a Magical Royal Proclamation had been made. As she scanned through the words there, she breathed out, "Damn! The legal purists in Geneva are going to scream over this one! If how they reacted to Svetlána and her army and division commanders keeping their ranks after it was all over…"

With that, she flipped the page to gaze on a personal note from the President:

_General Bean, _

_I must confess that when President Lincoln wrote to me today and told me the story about how you and the other commanders in the Magical Corps during World War Two were stripped of theatre ranks, I was shocked. A woman — twice winner of the Medal of Honour and the Distinguished Service Medal, Heroine of the Soviet Union, winner of the Order of Lénin, the American Magical Cross, the Order of Koščéj in the First Degree, the Order of Merlin Second Class, the Bronze Star, four-time winner of the Purple Heart AND the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction — who gave exemplary service throughout_ three _wars, having risen to acting command of the Seventh Cavalry Division in Europe before the Battle of Nurmengard…and forced to give up that rank not because of dishonourable actions, but because of baseless fears forced on her by people who clearly could not comprehend the true nature of national service. _

_This was something the Soviet Union refused to contemplate after the horrid losses they suffered while the Moscow Magical Front sacrificed so much to free Europe from Minister Grindelwald…and after a review of the records concerning you and your brother and sister officers from the Magical Corps, I decided this will no longer stand. _

_America will NOT dishonour its magical heroes all because they wore a military uniform and fought for the cause of freedom as part of the Greatest Generation. _

_At the personal suggestion of the President of the Russian Federation, I have released Magical Executive Order 13548, a copy of which is contained with this note and the promotion order Secretary McHugh prepared in your case as the senior surviving officer of the Seventh Cavalry Division. This order, as you no doubt will have already read, officially rescinds Magical Executive Order 9686 which saw you and your brother and sister officers stripped of your theatre ranks for no just cause. _

_You earned that star, General Bean. Wear it with pride. _

_Yours sincerely,  
Barack H. Obama _

_P.S. Abraham also told me that this current affair that has taken you away from your beloved students should be resolved by tomorrow your time in England, Mollie. I will pray to God that you return to these shores safe and sound._

Blinking as her blue eyes teared at such a warm note from the former Illinois senator, Mollie then blinked on feeling Diana's hand squeeze her shoulder in support. Taking a deep breath, she gazed on the younger woman. "Colonel von Meißen, is Brigadier Gibbon looking for some extra help to put down those uppity carpetbagger daywalkers?"

"I believe the _Generalmajorin_ will be happy to have you join us," Diana asserted.

With that, Mollie then reached in to open the bag to get at her new uniform…

* * *

On the West of England Main Line near Chard Junction in Somerset (forty-five kilometres north of west from Bournemouth), that moment…

"And how is the trip so far, Comrade Marshal?"

Svetlána Múromeca blinked on hearing that question from the stewardess currently watching over things in the first class car of the Class 159 three-car train now making its serene way towards the second largest city in Devon. As this was an off-peak hour run, there were next to no people in the car. Atop that, the cars had been recently modified by Avalonian-Briton engineers working for the Stagecoach Group's South West Trains division to allow privacy screens — both physical and energy barrier shield — to be put into place to ensure the people who rode these cars could enjoy their journey without dealing with background noise; the former commander of the Moscow Magical Front didn't even have to put up a privacy charm around her seat to ensure she was left alone. "Your sisters have done wonders these last few months, _továrišč_," the native of a village outside the city of Múrom on the banks of the River Oká almost on the direct line between Rjazán' and Nížnij Nóvgorod replied as she stretched. "Even your sisters in Russia. When I rode the rail from Moskvá Belorússkij to Warszawa Zachodnia on my way over here, it was as if I was flying in the calmest day imaginable!"

The stewardess chuckled as she moved to sit across from the magical veteran of the Great Patriotic War. "We do try our best, sister," she — her name tag said **WENDY** — stated. "What do you intend to do once you get over to Lundy?" At the Russian's surprised look, Wendy Pearson winked. "Heather Nott told me what was going on."

"Once I'm there, I'll call upon a new comrade I made shortly after my body-swap to let me inside Xízer Artúrovna's _proper_ ancestral home, then have a little discussion with Fëdor Méjsonovič Nott concerning how to behave around his elders," Svetlána stated, which made the younger woman tense. "They mind-raped information from me so they can press their senseless campaign against your people…and all those such as myself who have effectively allied ourselves with them." As Wendy gaped in horror at those words — mind-raping was the ugliest act of all in Avalonian eyes — the traveller from Russia added, "All to continue to force people to treat them — when they have done simply _nothing_ to deserve it — as the cultural and social leaders of all of humanity."

Hearing that, Wendy shook her head. "I haven't dealt with magicals ever since I came to live in Britain and began working for Stagecoach, but I've heard stories about them. Didn't what your former opponents in World War Two teach them about how hollow their worldview actually is make them finally open their eyes?"

"We and they tried, but they dug their heels in and refused to change until recently…and even that was reluctantly. The only true way in my eyes to do that is to be rid of the Statute of Secrecy once and for all. That would force them to come out into the open to see how the real world works," the older woman said. "I myself have long believed that, much more so than Gellért Mixaílovič did." She shrugged, a smirk crossing her face. "Then again, he was looking to create a tyranny where normals would be enslaved to those endowed with magic. Thank the Fates Elizabéta Èduardovna and her sisters never bought into that." She gazed out the window as the rolling hills of the border region between Somerset and Devon passed them by. "That, I think, is what is behind this movement against your people from the magical side of things. Your people's arrival on Earth — much that I am grateful for your coming since I wouldn't be alive hadn't those wonderful children been there to help me — is forcing those cowards to confront the fact that there _**is**_ a wider world beyond the borders of their enclaves…and that if they hope to continue to exist, they'll have to finally swallow their pride and accept that they are NOT as powerful as they like to believe."

"I've heard of sisters who've run afoul of drunk wizards or witches who feel that they can get away with anything with just a quick memory-wipe," Wendy noted. "Every time that's happened, someone comes along and gives the would-be rapists a nice headache via a Lawgiver at high stun and point blank range, then they get dumped off inside that magical preserve in Wales to face the dragons." As Svetlána laughed — Wendy told her that her master had been killed by the ch'uokyek of Noukiios during the Liberation — the stewardess added, "It's necessary. People really don't realize it, but in the eyes of those who would conquer Earth, there's no difference between magical and normal."

"Pity those Oni didn't target someone in the enclaves to make them be Earth's tag champion in lieu of Negako Hirosukovna's brother," Svetlána mused. "Then again, magicals like myself must remind them of those insane lunatics that live on Yiziba."

Wendy wailed as she clasped her cheeks in a perfect imitation of the subject of the famous painting _The Scream_. "_**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! DON'T SAY THAT NAME!**_"

Both of them laughed before the stewardess stood up to continue her rounds. As the train continued to proceed southwest past Axminster, Svetlána closed her eyes as she mentally reached out to the west-northwest and the small island off the coast of northwest Somerset. «Karl Ivánovič!» she called out. «It is time!»

* * *

The Isle of Lundy, that moment…

Karl Vogt blinked as he felt something wash through his body from somewhere to the east-southeast. Before he could question what it was, a female voice which seemed to whisper at him — yet spoke with a waterfall of pure power — echoed inside his mind.

«Karl Ivánovič! It is time!»

He tried not to jerk too much as a mixture of raw passion and equally raw fear ripped through him from head to toe. _**Mistress!**_ he mentally gasped as he turned away from the others in his group, all of whom were busy doing maintenance of the gestation moulds now empty of the first generation of magical golems to have been created in Europe for six decades. _Mistress, where are you?! I've been waiting for you…!_

«Hush!» that commanding voice echoed in his mind as his body began to react to his mistress' magic, a power which had been boosted to unimaginable degrees thanks to Svetlána Múromeca undergoing a body-swap two months ago because of her "liquidation" courtesy of Russian allies of Theodore Nott who worked in the Spemát. As he adjusted his trousers to allow his erection to have more room, he tried not to grin.

«How are your sisters?» she then asked. «Have they met the _Podrúga Drakónov_ yet?»

_Yes!_ Karl thought to himself as he tried not to openly react; his sister and their companions didn't know about his current relationship with the Bloody She-Bear of Siberia. _They met up with_ Frau _Inada and her friends the weekend you allowed your virgin blood to claim me. Right now, Gretchen and Elle are busy with_ Frau _Minami and_ Frau Etō_. I sent them off to have them pass on information concerning_ Herr _Sewell's plans to attack Azkaban early tomorrow morning to_ Frau _Inada so she will be ready to stop them. Once that's done, Cathrin and the others can go ahead and become organic._

He sensed the pleased nod from Svetlána many kilometres away…though it was also touched with surprise that he and his fellow golems now knew the identity of the Friend of Dragons. _Mistress, it was easy to determine, especially given the fact that_ die Freundin von Drachen _is a practicing_ Zoroastrian _from_ **Japan** _of all places!_ he gently teased. _That's never happened in real life, so it was logical to assume that she was based on some fictional character. A quick check over the Internet later revealed her identity: Inada Mizuho of_ Battle Royale_!_ And with that, he projected all the information he had gathered over the last while concerning that story from the depths of his artificial mind towards Svetlána so she could see where such a person came from.

Silence fell inside his mind as he sensed her rummage through those memories…before a horrid chill warped through him from that mental link with Svetlána. «_Bóže moj_…!» a voice filled with white-faced horror and volcanic outrage then hissed in his mind. Which was understandable; despite the liquidations in the 1920s and 1930s which ensured that Soviet magicals could never rise up against Iósif Stálin, Russians culturally were very doting when it came to children. «To believe that sort of barbarism actually happened somewhere in the universe…!»

_Yes, Mistress! We're all very lucky, especially given her current choice of weapon_, Karl responded. _Did the hybrids who saved you ever tell you of the_ haijo-ju_?_

A horrified gasp responded. «_**ONE OF**_** THOSE ****_THINGS ARE_**** HERE****_?!_**»

_Yes…but look at all the good_ Frau _Inada has done with it over the last few months, Mistress!_ he insisted. _How many lives has she saved, human and otherwise?!_

That made the former leader of Soviet magical forces in World War Two pause for a moment as she considered that before the aura of anger and horror that had flooded Karl once he allowed Svetlána to see his memories of _Battle Royale_ faded. «_Da_, that is true,» she breathed out before a smirk entered her voice. «Did you miss me, Karl?»

_Mistress, I live totally for you now!_ the golem mewed…

* * *

_On the northeast slopes of the Zugspitze (sixty kilometres south of southwest from Munich), Sunday 20 June 2010, before dawn… _

_"That's the last of these things, Comrade Marshal." _

_Svetlána Múromeca icily smiled as she lowered her wand; much that she had learned long ago how to manipulate magic without a medium, it was good to make use of the wand that had been taken from her in 1954 as a way of making sure she would remain within the Spemát after Nikíta Sergéevič Xruščëv ordered her imprisonment two years after Iósif Stálin died. "Well done,_ továrišči_!" she breathed out as she looked at the company of volunteers — all Terran-turned-Avalonians as secretly arranged by her own charges after the Bloody She-bear of the Steppes was reborn in the wake of her "liquidation" — said as she gazed without pity at the shredded and staked vampires currently littering the main street of this quaint village hidden in the shadows of Germany's highest mountain. "To believe our German friends never took notice of a place like this!" she then spat out in disgust, grateful once more that the strong telepathic defences her new body automatically gave her were strong enough to resist the magic of this place. _

_"It's almost as bad as what we found in Poland!" the former commanding general of the Seventh Guards Shock Army (Magical),_ Generál-Polkóvnik Vojsk Mágičeskie _Tat'jána Pávlovna Timošénko, exclaimed as she secured her wand. "Svetá, how on Earth…?!" _

_"Never mind, Tanjá!" the older woman stated as she gazed around the small village she and the people who had come to fight for their former commander just raided. They struck just before the sun would rise in the east; at this time of night, vampires — even the daywalkers — got pretty lethargic as the natural urge to avoid the cursed rays that would burn them alive overwhelmed them and forced them to seek rest. Atop that, the vampires of Spitzeberg had not expected such a sudden and brutal attack by the veterans of the Moscow Magical Front so many years after Grindelwald's War ended. "Ólya, do you think you can whip up an exorcism ritual that can clean this place up?!" _

_"My Marshal, if we do that, we'll cause a landslide!"_ Podpolkóvnik _Ól'ga Leonídovna Andréeva — who had been the commander of the Moscow Front's specially-trained battalion of curse-breakers — warned as she waved towards the high mountain to the west. _

_"That's my point, Ólya!" Svetlána stated as her blue eyes glowed with passionate fury, making the other veterans of the Great Patriotic War with her now tense in delighted anticipation at a chance to really make a mess of things. Whenever it came to wrecking something, their leader had always been willing to let her subordinates go crazy; doing that did more damage to the magical enclaves of Eastern Europe than anything Gellert Grindelwald and his Magische Reichsarmee had ever done. "If, by the odd chance, this village is known to the counterparts of our NKMD comrades…" — she always preferred the title of the Soviet magical ministry during Stálin's time — "…in Berlin, they might send investigators. What better way to hide our tracks…?" _

_That made Ól'ga savagely grin. "Than to make it look like a natural catastrophe!" _

_"_Da_!" _

_The young curse-breaker from Stalingrád — again, Svetlána preferred the older names for cities — smirked. "I'll get on it right away, My Marshal!" she vowed before winking at the older woman. "But I want a bottle of good Prjagrád after this is done!" _

_"Ólya, do it right and I'll buy you a whole_ **case**_!" _

_Ól'ga laughed. "I'll drink to your health, My Marshal! Give me ten minutes!" _

_"You have them!" _

_With that, the curse-breaker headed off to the site of the old Nazi camp at the east end of this small village. As the others continued to do a full sweep of the site to make sure there were no survivors who could spread the alarm, Svetlána conjured a camp chair to sit on before closing her eyes as she allowed her magic to calm down after flinging herself over the last half-hour against a naturally upset coven of vampires who wanted to "live"…but stood in the way of her getting all the necessary information she needed to learn why she had been targeted for death a month ago. Tat'jána moved to stand beside her. "God, I missed this so much," the younger veteran of the Great Patriotic War — she had been just twenty-eight when Svetlána put her in charge of the Seventh Shock Army in 1941; it wouldn't be given the coveted "Guards" title until three years later — breathed out as she looked around. "Not the killing, of course — even if they are vampires — but the chance to be in the field again…" _

_"Not so long ago, I was worried that the magicals of the_ Ródina _were getting weak," the retired marshal noted before a snort escaped her. "Can't say that now." _

_That made the native of Kyïv — Tat'jána was, as her family name showed, Ukrainian even if she had fought for the USSR during the Great Patriotic War; currently, she served as a special adviser to the_ Ministerstvó Máriï _— chuckle as she crossed her arms. "I was worried as well, my friend," she mused. "Especially with the few pureblood morons who escaped the purges you and yours unleashed before the war. Many of them fled the country and settled in Canada and America after the October Revolution. While a lot were seduced by the equality our friends in North America espouse, some…" _

_"Deserved a long vacation in the Spemát," her former commander finished. "And at the way it was when I was in charge of internal affairs at the NKMD." _

_"_Da_! Far more than you ever did," Tat'jána said as she conjured up her own chair to sit down. "Why did they do that to you, Svetá?! Yes, Kóba was a paranoid fellow — way more paranoid than what was healthy for anyone — but you had to do it to survive and make sure other people could survive without being forced to bow to some powerless 'lord' who claimed he was a blood descendant of old Koščéj himself! I can't understand why Xruščëv saw you as a threat to his attempts at trying to reform the Union! You just wanted everyone to be safe! He was there when our comrades fought the Germans from Kyïv to Stalingrád and on the long ride to Greifinswald!" To the veterans of the Great Patriotic War on the magical side, that blood-soaked advance into the heart of the Greater Germany Reich was described as a "long ride to Greifinswald" thanks to the warriors of the Moscow Magical Front most often being mounted on nightmares; normal veterans of that war always called it "the long walk to Berlin." "How many people did_ he _want to see die if the capitalist pigs decided to finish what Hitler started?!" _

_A tired sigh answered her. "I stopped asking that long ago, Tanjá. People are lazy no matter where they live or what government they have over their heads. Magicals — especially in Europe — were particularly guilty of that sort of stupidity." She then smirked. "Still, there is hope. With the way our new Avalonian comrades now see it, both Russia and Ukraine will be sharing a whole_ **planet** _once those Seifukusu are made to see reason and retreat far from our solar system's borders. Those who will go settle that world — magical and normal alike — will discover the strength they would need to make a good go of it; the nature of colonization demands it. At least we won't have to worry about potential interference from natives as the Europeans discovered…" _

_"Comrade Marshal!" _

_Both women tensed as a wide-eyed brunette with dark grey eyes raced towards them._ Stáršij Práporščik _— she had only been a_ Mládšij Seržánt _during the Great Patriotic War; her current rank title indicated her present place as a senior field officer of the_ Mágičeskix Polká Milícii _— Ksénija Ígor'ovna Lébed'a had been one of the most lethal snipers ever employed by the Red Army. Her kill record of 417 nearly equalled that of her normal contemporary,_ Stáršij Seržánt _Pável Petróvič Gógol'…which had made magical purists across Europe howl at the idea of using "muggle" weapons to fight a_ magical _war, especially in such a "dishonourable" fashion. Svetlána Múromeca hadn't cared at all about such "decadent" attitudes; she was after results and Ksénija — who had been only_ **sixteen** _when she had joined the Red Army in 1941 after Barbarossa began! — provided those results in spades, especially after she had learned how to enhance her Tókarev SVT-40 rifle to fire special bullets that could be hyper-charged with magic, thus guaranteeing they would reach out and kill someone from over a kilometre away. _

_"What is it, Ksjúša?!" Svetlána asked. _

_Ksénija stopped. "Begging to report, Comrade Marshal," she began before waving off down the street. "We found something there! I'd swear it was a golem…!" _

_That made the Bloody She-Bear's eyes widen in shock. "Show me!" _

_Both raced down the street, with Tat'jána following. Soon, they stepped into a rather large house that seemed no different than the others in this village from the outside…but instantly made Svetlána tense as she felt meson-powered defensive wards touch her as soon as she passed through the front door. Much to the marshal's surprise, said wards didn't toss her out on her butt…but welcomed her with a warmth that made her blink in confusion. "Did you feel that when you came in here, Ksjúša?!" _

_"_Da_! It felt like I was in my mother's arms again, Comrade Marshal," the sniper replied. "Up the stairs here," she then bade as she ascended to the second floor. _

_Svetlána and Tat'jána followed her up to find themselves in a corridor that connected to a series of spacious bedrooms and a small bathroom. Checking into the latter, the former commander of the Seventh Guards Shock Army nodded…before she stopped and looked again. "Svetá, look at this!" she bade. "Doesn't this look odd?" _

_The marshal came over to look…before her eyebrow arched. "No toilet." _

_"That made me instantly suspect that golems live here, Comrade Marshal," Ksénija stated, her voice filled with the giddy happiness of a child who had done something to please a favourite grandmother. Which she had felt since she learned three weeks ago that the woman who had led the Moscow Magical Front to an overwhelming victory in the magical side of the Great Patriotic War was alive, well and now free of imprisonment; as a member of the Magical Militia, Ksénija Lébed'a had been told right away about the older woman's "tragic heart failure"…which she didn't believe was such right from the start. "After all, if these were normal vampires, they'd need a way to relieve themselves of normal waste matter whenever they pretended to be normal people while hunting." _

_"Good point. Now show me what you found." _

_The sniper waved the senior officers over to the room opposite from the bathroom. There, all three found themselves gazing on what people might have thought was a mannequin made to pose in a walking stance…if said "mannequin" didn't look like a real person right up close and was fully functional in every aspect imaginable; he had been frozen stiff in the midst of dressing. Thinking of that, Svetlána nodded. The veterans of the Moscow Magical Front's in-house rocket artillery division that had come with her this morning had bombarded the village with surplus BM-13 Katjúša truck-launched rockets — modified with wide-area stunning spell explosives; the Studebaker trucks that they had been mounted on had been shrunk down and carried into position — before the veterans of Grindelwald's War had charged in to finish it off. _

_"Oh, my…!" Tat'jána purred with amused delight on seeing the size of this particular fellow's "talent." "Who on Earth built this one?!" _

_"Johannes Vogt, I think." _

_Eyes locked on Svetlána, who had a smirk on her face. "Wait! Wasn't_ Akadémik _Vogt the man who helped run that war golem project out of Trischen with_ Majór _Heinrich that we found out about after we destroyed Greifinswald?!" Tat'jána demanded. _

_"_Da_, Tanjá! During his interrogation, Comrade Professor Vogt revealed that he created adult-form replicas of his lost son and daughter; both were killed as children prior to his fighting for the Prussians in that stupid war with France back in 1870," the marshal said as she gazed up and down the stilled golem's quite well-shaped body. "So you're Karl, eh?" she mused as she cut open one of her fingers with her dagger. She then stabbed that bleeding extremity right into the golem's forehead. _

_A powerful flash of magic later, the golem blinked as he straightened himself to attention. "_Guten Morgen, meine Dame. Mein Name ist Karl. Was für ein Service oder Befehl willst du mich führen?_" he asked in letter-perfect German. _

_"Do you know who I am, Karl?" _

_He blinked. "You are Svetlána Il'ínična Múromeca." A touch of hate filled his voice as he added, "You had my father killed after the war ended." _

_That made her blue eyes flash as an understanding look crossed her face. "Were you involved in what happened to me a month ago back at the Spemát?" she hissed out. _

_He curtly nodded. "I directed Theodore Nott and Adam Sewell to you to gain information concerning where the war golems Father helped create were located." _

_"Why help a pureblood minor lord from Britain?" she spat out. "They hate your kind, Karl! And who in Fate's name is this Sewell fellow? Some idiot who wanted to use the name of that lunatic who tried to create a nation of vampires in the 1860s?" _

_"That_ **is** _Adam Sewell, Mistress. He needed a body he could use after his original one was destroyed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 prior to the Battle of Gettysburg; since that confrontation, he's been forced to possess either other vampires or normal people so he could remain 'alive' and active in this world," he calmly answered, making both of Svetlána's companions hiss out in horror on realizing that one of the most dangerous enemies of all humanity was still active. "Many of his fellow daywalkers who fought to break apart the United States in that conflict also required new bodies to use." _

_"_Bóže mij_!" Tat'jána hissed out. "What the hell is this all about, anyway?!" _

_"They seek to destroy the Avalonians." _

_Silence. _

_More silence. _

_Still more silence. _

_And then… _

_"Because of Angelus and Spike, you mean," Svetlána stated. _

_"Yes." _

_Taking a deep breath, the older woman closed her eyes as she felt her magic billow from her heart in response to the feeling of total outrage now flooding her at the very IDEA of trying to hurt the beautiful bioroids…which would include the hybrid children who had saved Svetlána's life a month ago. Before she could lash out to crush this thing with a force bolt of energy, she then paused as something came to her. Gazing down at the considerable erection Karl now had, she then smirked. "Tanjá." _

_Tat'jána tensed. "_Da_?" _

_"Go to Ólya and tell her to hold off on the exorcism. I'll need thirty minutes with our new comrade here to get the full story of what's going on." _

_Hearing that, the former commander of Seventh Army smirked. Even if Svetlána was old enough to be Karl Vogt's_ grandmother _— were he born human — she now had a body that made her appear to be eighteen years old, just fresh out of Gamájun. Said body clearly had needs as Tat'jána herself discovered after she undergone her own body-swap a week ago. "I best give you an hour," she then teased as she winked at her old commander. _

_That made Svetlána laugh. "You are_ kul'túrnyj_, Tat'jána Pávlovna!" _

_"Someone has to be, Svetlána Il'ínična! Come, Ksénija Ígor'ovna. Our marshal needs a little time alone with our new comrade to make him see the reality of the situation." _

_"_D-d-da_, M-my G-g-general!" a now-madly blushing Ksénija — who was wondering if all that time in the Spemát had fully unhinged her old front commander — sputtered. _

_Both quickly stepped out of the room. With a wave of her hand, Svetlána closed the door and put a locking charm on it before she gently pushed the nude golem onto the bed. Gently adjusting him so that he would be comfortable, she then moved to undress. Karl — who had been watching her — began to shudder as his eyes widened on seeing what lay underneath her field uniform. Once her panties and bra were off, she gently posed for him, which made him moan as his manhood quivered in anticipation of being able to sink into such a perfect body. Noting that, she smiled as she moved to lay beside him, twisting around to let her chest press into his as she gently fondled him, eliciting another moan from him. "I didn't kill your father, Karl Ivánovič," she gently soothed. _

_He blinked for a moment before his body seemed to relax. "He died…" _

_"Because he was tired and wanted to be with his wife finally after being separated from her for so long," she gently stated. "He helped us progress research into war golems after it was all over. Despite the Fates forcing us to fight against each other, Iván Fomásovič believed in the dropping of the Statute of Secrecy and the full reunion of all humanity as equals. No different than what Linn Gerárdovna and the others involved in that little project who helped your father create you and Ekaterína Ivánovna fought and died to create." As his eyes widened, she smiled. "He died with yours and Kátja's name on his lips, Karl. I promised him that if I ever found you two, I would take care of you. You're no different than a Steel Angel." She hummed. "So why are you supporting an effort by vampires and pureblood wizards to kill the Space Angels?" _

_"I am not supporting it." _

_Her eyebrow arched. "Oh? What do you plan to do?" _

_"To expose it to the Friend of Dragons and see it stopped, Mistress. My sister and the others of our group just met her and her friends at Therme Bad Wörishofen yesterday. Given how much the Friend of Dragons has helped magical sentients of many species, she would be sympathetic to helping all of us become fully organic so we may reproduce." _

_That made Svetlána blink before she smirked, nodding in understanding. "What about the fact that the bioroid factory cannot create men?" she wondered. _

_"Cathrin reported there are twenty-one girls in the group the Friend of Dragons is a part of, Mistress," Karl replied. "All of them dress in normal Japanese high school uniforms when they visit the magical enclaves. They all spoke of male friends they want desperately to help. It is easy to conclude that they were part of a mixed-gender class before they were transformed into Avalonians. If that is so, where are the men? And if there are men in that class, how would they become Avalonians themselves? They clearly do not wish to force their friends to undergo gender reassignment." _

_She considered that before nodding. An amused smile then crossed her face. "Tell me, Karl…have you ever made love to a virgin before?" she gently teased. _

_His eyes went wide. "You're a_ virgin_?" he eeped. _

_"_Da_. When the little ones who saved me created my new body, I didn't bother with the necessary charms to break my hymen. A little voice in my head advised me to hold off on it this time until I found the right man to make me a woman in this life." _

_She then leaned close to him. "Show me you're the right man," she purred…_

* * *

"Karl…are you alright?"

He perked on hearing that concerned question before turning to gaze upon a beautiful woman that appeared to be his physical age, dressed now in more traditional wizarding clothes instead of the modern clothes the golems who worked here wore. Like Theodore Nott, she had raven hair that — were it not tied up in a high bun at the top of her head — would have extended to mid-back. A pair of dark blue eyes peeked out of a very beautiful face that looked as if it had been painted by Leonardo da Vinci himself, said eyes framed by a pair of oval reading glasses even if she personally didn't need them to see. Had she been allowed to dress more modernly, Karl mused with a sense of personal pride at creating something so aesthetically perfect, she would have been swooped up right away by a modelling agency and made to display herself to the masses.

Of course, unlike the regiment's worth of would-be war golems that he and his friends had laboured to create these last three months, this particular golem was designed to help fill a still-yawning void deep inside the heart of a man who had seen tragedy in his life. Ingrid Crawford — she had personally suggested not taking up her template's married name "Nott" when she was first awoken so as to not give people cause to wonder what was happening at Lundy Keep — was a replica of Theodore's late mother, who died shortly after his birth in early 1980 due to contracting a fatal strain of wizarding flu. Fortunately for the golem that had been created to take her place, Theodore's father had been wise to obtain copies of all her memories before her death, which had been lovingly stored in pensieve bottles at the mansion; such had been used for a painting of Ingrid Mason had kept in his bedroom for years. Those memories would later be used by Karl to have them copied into a meson crystal which he placed into a golem body that he had personally constructed to create a replica of Ingrid Crawford when she had graduated from Hogwarts and was betrothed to the much older yet dashing Mason Nott.

To Theodore's utter delight, he got a version of his own mother that could move around the house with him…and even accompany him on trips around Europe; he rarely if ever travelled with her inside Britain, though he didn't restrict her to the Keep.

Like Draco Malfoy had done concerning his mother Narcissa, Theodore Nott viewed his own mother — even this golem replica of hers — as someone who was totally sacrosanct.

Looking around, he then guided Ingrid into his personal work office area, which also contained his bedroom and bathroom. Closing and locking the door, he then sighed. "My mistress called out to me just now, Ingrid," he stated. "She's coming here."

That made her blink. "Marshal Múromeca?" she calmly asked.

He gaped at her. "How did you guess?"

Ingrid giggled. Her other-self had been a Ravenclaw and had graduated from Hogwarts near the head of her class in 1974. "I've visited you when you were sleeping since you came back from Spitzeberg a month ago with the news that an avalanche destroyed the village and killed all your friends," she admitted. "I felt the magic of the blood bond you have now fill this room when you've dreamt of her taking you." She then smirked. "You also spoke in Russian when you dreamt of your mistress. The rest was simple deduction." As he chuckled, she then blinked. "Will she kill Theo?"

«Tell her no, Karl,» Svetlána — who had been monitoring this conversation through the mental link she now had with her lover — immediately stated. «But I cannot guarantee same when I do come. War is like that. And Fëdor Méjsonovič may be facing Gonebren once Hárold Jákovič and Elizabéta Èduardovna get their hands on him. Warn her.»

Karl nodded before relaying what his mistress just said. Hearing that, Ingrid blinked before she slowly nodded in understanding. "I wish he would not hate Avalonians so much," she stated. "I've overheard Cathrin and the others talk about the day they would be become organic and be able to seek out lovers to have their own children with. I have those same desires…as you do as well. If I could be that way…"

"You could be Theodore's future wife," he noted. "Even if technically, that would be incest as your replacement body's DNA would be based on your template's."

She shrugged before a saucy smile crossed her face. "I can't deny what I am. You made me this way, remember?" She blinked. "Could the marshal be my mistress as well? As an Avalonian, she's bisexual. She'll feel the _marei'cha_ urge sooner or later."

«Much that I'm touched by her offer, Karl, please tell her that I can't,» Svetlána then stated. «Unless she's willing to move all the way to Russia to help me care for the little ones who saved my life, I won't take her from the place she now sees as home.»

Karl nodded again before relaying that information to her. Ingrid blinked before she nodded, a touch of sadness crossing her face. "I must bond soon…!"

«May I interrupt this?»

Karl and Ingrid both gasped…as did Svetlána on the train. "_Frau_ Inada?!" he exclaimed as he looked around for the source of that accented voice.

A delighted laugh answered him. «So you guessed it out, Master Karl! Well done, my friend! Well done!» Inada Mizuho stated. «My apologies, Wise Mistress Svetlána, for eavesdropping on your conversation with your handsome lover, but my companion alerted me to your current approach to Lundy Keep to deal with the monster who tried to have you killed out of his twisted and warped beliefs in pureblood magical superiority over all other forms of life. Seeing as how I am now in the position to aid Mistress Ingrid in her quest to become organic, I could help you all resolve this quite easily enough.»

«How so, Mizuho…um, your father's name?» Svetlána asked.

«In your style, I am Mizuho Šinžiovna, Svetlána Il'ínična,» the current mistress of the Staff of Gihan then stated with a touch of stutter in her voice. «And I apologize if I didn't get the right pronunciation and stress point of my father's name in your quite civilized tongue correct. For all the experience I've gained over the last few months, mastering foreign languages has been something I've not been able to do.»

Roaring laughter echoed over the mental link connecting Karl and Ingrid with the former's master on a train in Devon and a Japanese teenager on a great factory ship in orbit over the Moon. «You are cultured, Mizuho Šinžiovna! But then again, many of you from Japan are the same way as your spiritual kinswoman Tsukiko Makotovna proved!» The leader of the Moscow Magical Front then sighed as Karl felt a wash of determination flood him through his link with Svetlána. «Karl, are there vampires there?»

"None, Mistress. They all left to brief their friends on tomorrow's operation."

«Wonderful! Mizuho Šinžiovna, can you tell if any of Elizabéta Èduardovna's people are close to Lundy Keep? They deserve to have a hand in this as well.»

A hum trilled through the two golems' minds. «We are in luck, my friend. A company of the Second Battalion under Mistress Robyn Willhelms is currently encamped near Marisco Castle at the southern end of the island.» Karl and Ingrid then sensed a smile creep into the young woman's voice as she added, «My good friend has indicated that there is a blood relationship between Mistress Robyn and Master Theodore.»

"That's easily explained," Ingrid stated. "Robyn Willhelms is descent from a squib ancestor of Theo's who served in the King's German Legion against Napoleon. Theo's grandfather Herbert tried to trace down those relatives after his father Cantankerus was killed by someone in 1944; he believed it was the Schwarze Mädchen who did it."

«In that, the fool was wrong,» Svetlána stated. «Cantankerus was killed by his elder son, Herbert's brother Arthur, because he learned that Arthur had survived long enough to become a member of Britain's Special Air Service. If you don't know who they are, Ingrid, think of them as a non-magical version of the War Hawks.» As Ingrid gasped, the Russian then added, «He shouldn't have blundered his way into a training area when live ammunition was being fired in preparation of the invasion of northern France in the summer of 1944. Not that Artúr Kántankerovič really cared either which way.»

«Hello?! Who's this?!»

People blinked on hearing that voice. "Hello, Robyn," Karl called out.

Silence.

«_**KARL?!**_» Robyn Willhelms exclaimed. «How…?! But…! Where are you?!»

"Just on the other side of the island from where you are now…or so the Friend of Dragons just told me," he stated with a smirk. "How's Linn?"

More silence.

«Um…sh-she's fine,» Robyn — a native of Stade on the shores of the Elbe River near Hamburg who had graduated from Trischen a year after Linn Heinrich — stuttered out, her words echoing the surprise and shock on encountering someone she hadn't known had survived the war. «What are you doing visiting _Herr_ Nott?! Surely you…!»

"He doesn't plan to do that, Major Willhelms," Ingrid cut in out of defence for her own creator. "He, his sister and the others want to become organic. By allying with the Avalonians — and seeking out the aid of the Friend of Dragons — they could make sure that Mister Sewell's plan to attack your adopted people would ultimately fail." Even if she now knew the given name of that young woman, she wouldn't say it in public.

«Tell me, Róbin Pávlovna…would you want to inherit Fëdor Méjsonovič's seat in the Wizengamot?» Svetlána then teasingly cut in.

Still more silence.

«_Generalfeldmarschall_ Múromeca?! What are YOU doing here?!» Robyn demanded.

«That, _továrišč_, I will tell you as soon as I can. Young lady, do we attack now?»

«I am ready,» Mizuho stated.

Much to Karl's personal relief, Robyn was still a very professional soldier and could recover quickly from being surprised. «Well, since the meeting in the Wizengamot to allow Elisa and the others to claim their seats is in two hours, might as well.»

«Splendid!» the current mistress of the Staff of Gihan breathed out…

* * *

Upstairs in the master bedroom, a minute later…

"**_HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO THAT?!_**"

An amused titter came back over the floo. "Theo, if you think I'm going to be so stupid as to side with the losers of this little fight, you're an idiot," Hester Selwyn replied from her townhouse in London. "I didn't appreciate having Mister Sewell send off a pack of his friends — and friends forced to possess _golem_ bodies at that! — to attack me in my own home when I had no intention of betraying them to Harry. Much that I agree that uncontrolled exposure to the Avalonians is not a good thing, if _**that**_ is the way your 'ally' intends to press through with his petty war, I want no part of it."

That made Theodore Nott gnash his teeth in outrage. After wasting hours trying to get through to his sole surviving ally who had yet to be corrupted by the bioroids, he was now getting THIS from Dolores Umbridge's first cousin once removed…?

"I can't believe the relative of a woman who had worked for so long to preserve our way of life would cast it aside and ally with _mudbloods_ and _aliens_!" he snarled.

"Well, isn't it funny that those 'aliens' you despise so much have done so much good even when they were still all enslaved to their masters," Hester countered in turn, her voice as cold as ice. She wasn't by far the most pretty woman he had ever met. Though not as physically repulsive as her elder cousin — even if she had been a sister Slytherin, Dolores Umbridge's toad-like looks had been enough to turn anyone's stomach even when she had been a student at Hogwarts in the late 1950s — had been, Hester did possess the same shade of dark, curly brown hair and deep brown eyes. Unlike many of the other current members of the Wizengamot, Hester hadn't been educated at Hogwarts. A special dispensation was given to her by allies of Hester's predecessor as leader of the Noble House of Selwyn of Hampstead, her grandfather Jason, to get around the clauses of the Ministry Governance Act of 1705 and its prohibition against non-Hogwarts graduates having anything to do with the Ministry of Magic or the Wizengamot. Out of an understandable fear of Albus Dumbledore's meddling in her life — even those people within the traditional "dark" families who would never have sided with Voldemort in the First Purification War had long noted the level of interference the Defeater of Grindelwald had shown over the years in people's lives — her parents Harold and Ophelia had her sent to Beauxbâtons; had she gone to Hogwarts, Hester would have been a third-year student in Theodore's freshman year, most likely as a member of Slytherin.

But now…

"Or did we forget what Madame Holmes did to Rose Potter and her friends?" Hester then teased as she sipped her tea, looking as calm as could be. "Even if they were alien in body, they were human in spirit. It's a pity none of them could be invited to Hogwarts thanks to that fool Riddle and his friends; they would have unleashed a revolution the likes of which hasn't been seen in this country since the time of the Founders."

"Oh?!" Theodore snarled back. "How could you possibly think that's good?!"

Her eyebrow arched. "What of Ingrid?"

That made his voice catch in his throat. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh, please, Theo! Don't insult my intelligence!" Hester sharply snapped. "You had _Herr_ Vogt and his sister create a golem replica of your late mother! I could tell right from the start!" As he sputtered out, she calmly sipped her tea. "Not that I don't blame you for doing that, of course. I can tell how much your mother's absence from your life has hurt you. I wished a hundred times and more to have my parents back after they died in the First War." Her voice dripped with scorn on saying that; it had long been suspected that the Selwyn family had been nearly wiped out to the last at Voldemort's command because of their unwillingness to join such an obviously deranged leader. "Not that Dolores wasn't a bad guardian by far…but her drive to climb up the ladder at the Ministry did distract her from other things." She sipped her tea once more. "And considering that those golems that were created at Trischen had been intended from the start as intimate lovers, I have to wonder what you've been doing with that replica of your mother since she was first created."

He bolted to his feet. "**_HOW DARE…?!_**"

A sharp explosion echoed through his bedroom as the house rocked violently from some sort of heavy impact, making him spin around…

"**_MUČÉNIE!_**"

Theodore screamed in agony as his whole body was nearly ripped apart by the application of the Russian version of the Cruciatus Curse showering him. As he collapsed to his side on the floor, footfalls heralded the arrival of a tall woman with flaming red hair and dark blue eyes, dressed in normal clothes. He tried to reach for his wand, but the sheer waves of pain ripping through his body was just too much for him. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the attacker made a gentle wave of the hand. "_Konéc_!"

A groan escaped him as the torture curse was lifted while his attacker moved to sit on his bed. "_Dóbryj den'_, Fëdor Méjsonovič," she said in a voice that made a chill worse than the Arctic in mid-winter fall over his heart. "We must…"

_Pop!_ "Evil crystal-blood mudblood! You will not hurt Mast-…!"

"**_ÆLF RETIER!_**"

A bolt of white light struck the Nott family elf, Cansy, which made her scream out in surprised shock and overwhelming pain as the servant bond that kept her loyal to her family for years was ripped away in an instant. As Theodore watched in horror, Cansy — who had been a close companion to her beloved Master Theo for years — collapsed to the floor as footfalls heralded the arrival of someone in the camouflage uniform of a major in the German Army. On seeing her, the current Viscount of Torridge paled in horror as her looks — wavy chestnut brown hair that went to mid-back that framed a perfect face pierced by dark brown eyes — quickly made him realize that this attack on his person had been coordinated between the commander of Number 23 Jäger Company, who was a distant relative of the family…and the former commander of the Moscow Magical Front, who should be _**dead**_ right now! "Y-y-you…!" he sputtered.

Standing close to Svetlána Múromeca, Robyn Willhelms smirked as she clasped her hands behind her back while footfalls echoed in the background as the members of her company of hit-witches swarmed through the mansion. "I never thought I would ever meet any of my English cousins…save for when I killed them on the battlefield or dragged them to meet my old schoolmate to be interrogated," the Lower Saxon hit-witch then stated, a cold smile crossing her face. "By the way, your granduncle Arthur sends his greetings, Theodore. If you wish to know, it was he who shot Cantankerus down when he stupidly blundered into the middle of a training exercise while Arthur was preparing for the invasion of Normandy back in 1944." She shook her head as a mirthless smile crossed her face. "Not that a stupid _leicheblut schweinhund_ like him — or you — would ever be truly missed."

Theodore shuddered. "Filthy…mud-…!"

"Oh, do shut up, Theo. You've been beaten. Accept it with grace."

Both women turned…

…before blinking in surprise to see Hester Selwyn standing near the doorway to the bathroom, having been teleported there by Inada Mizuho. As Theodore turned to stare wide-eyed at the "blood traitor" now sipping her tea in his own bedroom, Hester then smiled as her free hand came up to make a circular motion. "_Finite_!"

Both Svetlána and Robyn gasped as a multiple-layer disguise charm fell away from the current Baroness of Hampstead, revealing a stunningly beautiful woman with vibrant dark brown hair and brown eyes that sparkled with power and life. Along the way, a certain mental screen came down, which allowed the older Terran-turned-Avalonians in the room to realize that Hester Selwyn was of the same blood as they and Mizuho. As Theodore gaped in stunned disbelief, she smirked. "Alicia Holmes wasn't the only assistant observer on Earth who granted her mercy to a helpless witch who would have been struck down by an evil wizard," she calmly stated. "The current Elder Mother of my adopted people in Vaucluse did the same thing when I was in my sixth year at Beauxbâtons. No doubt, the hit-wizard who tried to kill me was acting on Voldemort's orders to give Dolores a chance to formally claim the family seat in the Wizengamot. Pity he never could imagine that an _alien_ — even if he was loyal to the 'church of the day' — would care more for someone like me than even my own cousin and her allies here in Britain."

"And you stayed silent about this…why?" Robyn asked.

"DNA loyalty lock," Hester sadly replied. "Unlike Alicia's father, my 'master' wasn't going to risk being executed as a 'heretic' for defying his superiors. And since I didn't really interact with them, I had no idea about the truth behind Rose and her friends until the Liberation. By then, I had got used to disguising myself to ensure no one would suspect the truth." To Svetlána. "What did he do to you, Marshal?"

"While I was still in the Spemát, he had me mind-raped to learn of what happened to the war golems Linn Gerárdovna Heinrich and Iván Fomásovič Vogt created to press on the war even after the Nazis were done away with," the veteran of the Great Patriotic War declared, which made both Robyn and Hester gasp in horror. As both women then stared wrathfully at Theodore, Svetlána added, "This stupid brat was tricked by Adam Sewell to learn about those bodies so they could be obtained…but it turns out that Comrade Sewell himself — not to mention his sister and many of his friends — are forced to use replacement bodies thanks to their real ones having been destroyed years ago thanks very much to the gallant efforts of people such as Avraám Fomásovič Lincoln." She smirked as Theodore gargled in shocked disbelief at that revelation. "Did you really think that the stupid creature wanted magic only just to try to destroy my adopted race, Fëdor Méjsonovič? He made horcruxi, just like Fomá Fomásovič Riddle made to stay 'alive' after Hárold Jákovič Potter's wonderful mother dealt with him back in 1981!" As a look of disbelief crossed his face, she smirked as she shook her head. "But then again, you never learned the real lessons being sorted into Slytherin were supposed to teach you. It strikes me so funny, Theodore, that Harry understood that much better…and he had been sorted by that stupid old hat into _**Gryffindor**_ of all…!"

"_Meine Majorin_!"

"_Ja_?!" Robyn called out as her company sergeant-major, a pretty girl with short-cut curly black hair and dark blue eyes and the framed diamond-over-single chevron insignia of a _Hauptfeldwebel_ on her shoulders, came into the room. "What is it, Edith?"

Edith Krause clicked her heels together in salute. "The house is fully secure and we're getting the anti-vampire wards erected right now, Robyn," the native of Halle an der Saale in Saxony-Anhalt near Leipzig reported. "We're getting the curse-breakers over here right now, too. We noticed that the vast majority of this house's internal defences have been horribly compromised. I'd think _Herr_ Sewell was responsible."

"Do not fret about him, Mistress Edith," Mizuho then stated. "My companion is now blocking the links between the detection charms Master Adam put in this place and he personally. You need not fret about your security being violated."

Edith nodded. "Pity that staff of yours can't find where they're hiding."

That made the would-be warrior-priestess from another dimension hum. "Perhaps our current host may enlighten us about that," she mused as she gazed down on Theodore.

"Mistress!"

Everyone turned before Robyn grinned. "Karl!"

Karl Vogt smiled as he allowed the pretty native of Stade to embrace him. "Hello, Robyn," he gently stated, his cheeks reddening as she gave him a passionate look.

"I've already claimed him, Róbin," Svetlána warned.

That made Theodore pale. "N-no…!"

"Oh, do be quiet, Master Theodore!" Mizuho snapped. "The stench of your hypocrisy when it comes to your relations with your fellow man is truly overwhelming!" As he gazed on her, she then icily smirked. "Did you know — much less care — that some of the vampires you've been dealing with were turned when they were MY age?!" As gasps filled the room, she twirled the Staff of Gihan. "Or are those words you magicals always espouse about the precious nature of children just a lot of useless hot air?"

"What children, _továrišč_?" Svetlána coldly demanded.

"A group of young ladies from the good state of South Carolina who formed a volunteer 'company' of 'sidesaddle cavalry' to help boost morale and relay gifts from loved ones to the warriors of the front line. They called themselves the Anderson County Amazons as a whole," Mizuho replied. "They were all turned near the end of 1862 after being tricked into believing the gift of vampiric immortality would better aide the cause of the Confederacy. Little did they know that by the time the forces of the Wise Master General William Sherman came in the spring of 1864 to make Georgia and the Carolinas howl for their treason against the just rule of the federal government in Washington City, they would be accompanied by experienced hit-wizards trained to permanently deal with the undead. Sadly, they — like so many others of that time period as we've all discovered recently — had their souls sheared apart by the horcrux process to keep them 'alive,' so to speak." As looks of horror crossed the others' faces, Mizuho shook her head. "Those fragments were preserved in specially-enchanted crystals and they would remain effectively asleep…until they were given new bodies some months ago. Thanks ultimately to what Master Karl prompted you to reveal, Mistress Svetlána."

"We didn't know any real specifics about those vampires who needed new bodies," Karl then confessed as Robyn gave him an accusing look. "Robyn, I swear this is the truth! When we got help from some Russian magical vampires to break into the bunker at Trischen, _Herr_ Sewell had the bodies taken off somewhere private so they could be programmed and woken. None of us were involved in doing anything with those golems! Believe me, if I knew girls THAT young were being dragged into this…!"

"Fret not about that, my friend. They're in the hands of my friends and will finally embrace true life after so many years in the dark," Mizuho calmly assured him.

"Thank God for that!" Hester breathed out. "So what do we do about Theo?"

"Allow me, sister."

A bolt of energy lashed out from the Staff of Gihan to rip into Theodore's head, making him scream out as every element of his mind was sheared open and sifted through with overwhelming force to learn everything he knew. After what seemed another eternity — it was only five seconds by Robyn's count — the energy faded as a small crystal of meson was made to appear, then floated over to Svetlána's hand. A pained moan escaped Theodore before he passed out. "I'm sure you can use that once you return to your vast motherland to cleanse the MMD of the traitors who would gladly set back magical society in Russia many decades because of their greed and selfishness, Wise Mistress Svetlána. In the meantime, I'll be off to rejoin my friends. Until we meet again."

In a flash, she teleported away. "You best summon Lizá here so she can use that key on this idiot, Róbin," Svetlána stated as she gazed on Robyn. "Dumping the fool into Gonebren would make your claim for this land and this house all the more legitimate."

"I'll have her come down now, _Frau Generalfeldmarschall_," Edith stated.

"Wonderful! Now, Karl, we must discuss things."

Karl jerked. "Of c-course, Mistress…!"

He then shakily offered his arm to her, which Svetlána took with a predatory grin. With that, both walked out of the bedroom. Robyn watched them go before she exchanged a knowing look with Hester. "It must get lonely at her age," the former mused.

"Most likely," the latter affirmed before sipping her tea.

"Mas-…ter…!"

Both gazed at Cansy, who was trying to stagger to the fallen Theodore's side. Robyn winced as she felt the rolling waves of agony from the house elf; the use of the Elf Retirement hex — when it had been used in the field, the hex made things a LOT easier for the Schwarze Mädchen, especially when they broke into the manors of pureblood lords across Europe to get at their targets; while the simple use of Killing Curses on house elves would have been proficient, the Black Maidens as a whole didn't care to kill such innocent creatures — had been even more devastating to the poor creature than if the soon-to-be deposed Viscount of Torridge gave her clothes. Taking a deep breath, Robyn knelt down to sweep Cansy into her arms, which made the elf gargle in shock as she turned to stare wide-eyed at this cruel woman who had hurt her so. "I'm sorry, _meine Dame_," she cooed, which made Cansy blink in surprise as her wounded soul picked up on the fact that she had just been called "my lady" in German. "Here…

"**_ÆLF IMPLICARE!_**"

Cansy screamed out again as magic flooded her from head to toe. The pillow case she had been wearing — despite her having never been abused by Theodore Nott, she was still pretty much treated as a useful piece of furniture in lieu of a sentient being — was instantly transformed into a version of Robyn's current combat uniform without rank insignia, complete with boots. After the elf blinked in surprise, Robyn smiled as she kissed Cansy on the forehead, which made the elf squeal in shock. "Now, _Frau_ Cansy, if you wouldn't mind, we need to get some trash sent off to Gonebren Prison."

Cansy blinked before she popped down to the floor, then gave an exaggerated salute with her left hand. "Yes, Mistress Major Robyn, ma'am! Cansy will take out the trash!"

And with a salute and a _pop!_, she and Theodore vanished. Robyn blinked before she sensed Edith gazing in amusement at her. "I don't need to hear it," the major warned.

"I wouldn't think of it," the company sergeant-major teased before she headed off.

"Well, if I can borrow your floo, I'll head back to my house," Hester then stated. "I assume I'll be seeing you at the Wizengamot this afternoon, Robyn."

Robyn nodded. "_Ja_…"

With that, the Baroness of Hampstead headed over to teleport herself back to London. As soon as she was finally alone in the bedroom, the commander of 23 Jäger Company sat down on the bed, shaking her head. "This better be worth it," she muttered.

A knock echoed from the door. "Excuse me, Major Willhelms?"

Robyn turned. "_Ja_?"

She then gaped on seeing the smiling woman there, who was giving her a suggestive look as she leaned against the doorway. "Since you've already claimed one piece of Theo's property, may I suggest you do so with another piece of his property?"

"What?"

Ingrid Crawford grinned. "Me."

That made Robyn's jaw drop in shock…

* * *

The Avalon bioroid factory, in one of the middle levels of Gestation Tower #98, ten minutes before…

There were days that Noda Satomi felt like she just wanted to scream.

Ever since she had woken in one of the upper levels of this particular part of the bioroid factory months ago — after enduring the emotional roller-coaster of _The Program_ which ended for her inside the small living quarters at the lighthouse of Oki-shima thanks to a bullet fired into the back of her head by Tanizawa Haruka — she had encountered more than her fair share of incidents when she simply wanted to yank at her wavy black hair and bellow out her outrage and frustration at the uncaring Fates.

Especially when it came to things _**she**_ did.

While it was good that Satomi was alive and well after she had been condemned to die in _The Program_ by an uncaring government that valued her ONLY as simple cannon-fodder to feed into a heartless machine to entertain the blood-thirsty masses of the Greater East Asia Republic, all the OTHER things she had faced since coming here were enough to make her go prematurely grey…and she was in an _Avalonian_ body at that!

It was bad enough that staying in this magical place would only be restricted to one solar year before the Shiroiwa girls would be sent back to their home dimension.

It was even worse that, thanks to what the Shiroiwa girls had come from, once they did go home, they would probably have target marks put on their heads by the government of the Republic for their "crime" of defying the needs of _The Program_.

And it hurt like nothing else in Existence that Satomi had personally fallen totally in love — in both spirit and body — with an unbelievable man who was a NATIVE of this dimension, which meant they were would be forced apart come the following February.

Hence her suggestions — usually shouted at the top of her lungs — to her friends to keep their heads down and their identities secret from the outside world at large.

It simply would hurt TOO much to make friends with the natives of this dimension — especially one Moroboshi Ataru — and then be yanked away from those friends because the Universe didn't care at all about what mere mortal girls would desire.

No matter how much her heart ached at the idea of never seeing Ataru again…

…Satomi had to make sure the others always understood that.

But it was hard in the face of what Inada Mizuho represented.

It wasn't that Satomi hated Mizuho, of course.

After what the Shiroiwa girls had endured on Oki-shima, the petty class rivalries that had split them apart for so long literally didn't mean anything anymore.

How can one hate someone just because she allowed her fantasies to spark up her life after the emotional and physical hell they had faced on that island?

Especially when Mizuho had gone totally overboard in honouring her friends' desire to stay safe and stay clear of any detection by outsiders.

Yet on the other hand…

"Oh, Mizuho…!"

Yep, this was definitely an occasion for hair-pulling.

Satomi knew there had NOT been a class of _**Americans**_ made to participate in _The Program_.

What the heck were TWENTY-FOUR young women who were clearly Westerners doing asleep in reclining chairs in one of the gestation tower's ten recreation lounges?!

Much that she did understand Mizuho wanting to save the lives of people since she had been given the power to do that by the Staff of Gihan to do so, the would-be warrior-priestess had been told time and time again to _not bring in strays_!

After all, the Staff could easily force people through body-swaps WITHOUT the need to bring the people up here to have that physically done!

"What — the — fuck…?!"

Satomi moaned. "I was about to ask the same thing, Hirono."

Standing at the entrance to the lounge, Shimizu Hirono could only blink as she gazed on the sleeping girls there. A quick check with her empathy indicated these girls were all Avalonians…and all emotionally the age of the Shiroiwa girls. All of them were currently dressed in plain panties and sports bras, showing off beautifully slender bodies that were growing out in all the right places for girls their age. Hair colours spanned the wide spectrum of shades common to Americans; their eyes were closed as their chests fell up and down in the metred rhythm of sleep. All were relatively the same height or so, which put them at Hirono's eye level on average. And all…

What WERE they doing here?

"Hey, guys!"

Satomi and Hirono turned as Minami Kaori and Etō Megumi came into the room, trays full of homemade sundaes in hand. As they set the trays down at a table, Satomi took a deep breath. "Girls, what the hell is THIS all about?!" she hissed out.

Mizuho's best friends seemed nonplussed. "We're bringing breakfast to new friends we just made," Megumi calmly answered before she knelt down beside one girl. "Rachel-san? Rachel-san?! Wake up! We got ice cream," she urged as she prodded the girl awake.

A moan escaped the girl with the rusty red hair cut at mid-neck as a pair of dark brown eyes opened. "Wh-where am…I…?" Rachel Thornbridge moaned out before she looked around this strange and cold place. "What…?" She then blinked as Megumi leaned into her field of view. "Miss Megumi…" she then breathed out, a smile crossing her face, before her eyes closed and she puckered her lips. "Kiss…"

Megumi smiled as she leaned down to give her just that. As Rachel moaned in delight on feeling those soft lips caress hers once more, Kaori moved to place the sundaes where the others could get their hands on them. She then leaned over to gently thread her fingers through the silky locks of a woman with dark hair that went to mid-shoulders. "Eleanor-san, I've got some food for you," she whispered as that girl breathed out, her dark green eyes opening. "Do you want some ice cream? We got it fresh."

That made Eleanor Reese blink. "Miss Kaori…kiss…"

Kaori smiled as she obliged the other girl. By then, Megumi was helping Rachel sit up so she could eat her sundae. "Oh, my…!" the captain in charge of the Anderson County Amazons gasped on seeing a big mountain of sweet vanilla goodness interlaced with dark chocolate, strawberry, whipped cream and a cherry on top in a clear cut glass being handed to her. Daintily taking the spoon that was provided with the sundae in hand, she scooped up some of the ice cream and gently put it to her mouth. Her body then seemed to swoon as a moan of pure pleasure escaped her. "So good…!"

"A lot better than drinking blood, I hope," Megumi mused.

Rachel blinked as her mind tried to comprehend that before she sighed. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did Miss Mizuho save us?" the leader of the Amazons wondered. "After all, we were nothing more than vam-…" She then made a face. "One of _them_…!"

Megumi hummed. "Well," she breathed out as she took the spoon from the other girl and moved to scoop some ice cream from the sundae. "In Mizuho's eyes, you're not a monster, Rachel-san. You're a victim. You formed your little club as a way of supporting your relatives out in the field as they fought to win independence for the South, right?" As the American nodded, Megumi held out the scooped ice cream for her to slurp up. "And you were made a vampire before you turned fifteen, right?" Rachel nodded again as a pair of gasps escaped the Japanese teenager's classmates standing by the entrance of the lounge. "And you were tricked into doing it since you didn't like the idea of not helping with the fighting even if you were girls and too young to disguise yourselves as boys to go out and volunteer to fight, right?" As Rachel nodded again, Megumi shrugged. "We went through the same sort of thing before we were brought here and made Avalonians. My classmates and I were forced into something like the gladiatorial games they used to play in ancient Rome. Ever hear about that?"

"Somewhat," Rachel admitted.

"Well, in _The Program_ — that's what it was called — we had a choice: Kill all our friends or be killed. There could be only one survivor in the end." As Rachel and Eleanor — who was allowing Kaori to feed her — both gasped in horror on hearing that, Megumi shrugged. "We never had the choice. It was fight or die. But because our story somehow got out in the Earth in this dimension, our souls were saved by the staff Mizuho has now from going to Heaven and were brought here so we could live again."

"Why…?" Eleanor moaned out.

"Don't know," Hirono then said, which made the two Americans gape at this tall and quite mannish-looking woman with the short-cropped blonde hair and brown eyes standing nearby. "One of our male friends — we haven't found a way to help them get back on their feet since this place can only make girls, but we're working on it — would be able to answer that. All we know is that we were condemned to die…and then we were brought here." She smirked as she walked over to kneel beside one of the Amazons, a woman about her height with shaggy black hair. A pair of oval-frame reading glasses were set aside. "Who's this one?" she asked as she thumbed the sleeping girl.

"That's Jane Gilmer," Eleanor provided. "She's our second lieutenant."

"Well, I ain't salutin' her," Hirono stated, which made the Amazons' first sergeant huff in outrage…before she saw the sparkle of mischievousness in the Japanese girl's eyes. With that, Hirono scooped up some ice cream and allowed it to gently press against Jane's lips. "Hey, Jane, up and at 'em. Got some food for you."

A moan escaped the raven-haired teenager. "Kiss…"

That made Hirono blink in confusion before she gazed on Kaori. "They never kissed any boy before they got turned," the latter whispered. "Don't go crazy on her, okay?"

"Gotcha," Hirono said as she pulled the spoon away before leaning down to kiss Jane.

That made the South Carolinian volunteer cavalry company officer moan in delight as she felt those soft lips press against hers, her dark grey eyes opening to allow her to gaze on a strange face. "Who…?" she groaned before recognition dawned. "Oh, Miss Hirono…" She then blinked. "How did I know that?" she asked.

"We'll explain that later," Hirono said as she brought the scooped ice cream into view, which made Jane's eyes go wide. "Oi, 'Tomi! Go get the others, huh?!"

Satomi groaned before she stormed off, muttering a storm as she went. That left behind three Japanese girls shaking their heads in annoyance at their classmate's antics and three very confused American girls. "What bee got into her bonnet, Miss Hirono?" Eleanor asked before smiling as Kaori offered her some more ice cream.

"'Tomi grows on you after a bit, Ellie," Hirono said before scooping up some more ice cream to give to Jane. "Let her cool down and relax."

"If that's possible," Megumi mused.

The others nodded…

* * *

By the time Mizuho herself had teleported back up to the factory from Lundy Keep, all twenty-four of the Anderson County Amazons were up and enjoying the ice cream that Kaori and Megumi made for them, they being fed for the most part by the other Shiroiwa girls. Even Satomi — who, despite all her fears, didn't see herself as evil by any stretch of the imagination and wouldn't dream of being cruel to a group of girls who were emotionally her age that had undergone something that almost equalled the Shiroiwa girls' experiences on Oki-shima in terms of pure evil — had pitched in to help out.

"Greetings, all!" the would-be warrior-priestess called out after she appeared into the lounge. Setting the Staff aside, she moved to sit down at one of the spare chairs.

"So what the heck did you do this time, Mizuho?" Nakagawa Yūka wondered.

"Do you remember Cathrin Vogt, friend Yūka?"

"Sure!"

"She and her brother helped a regiment's worth of daywalker vampires who had lost their original bodies during the war between the noble states of the Union over a century ago regain physical forms," Mizuho stated as Sakaki Yūko came over with a bottle of juice for her to drink. "My thanks, Yūko," she said as she uncorked the bottle and moved to sip from it. "Our new sisters were part of that group. To gain those bodies, Master Karl referred Master Sewell's allies to a woman named Svetlána Múromeca, a passionate and experienced warrior from vast Russia who fought to protect her homeland from the ravages of Master Gellert Grindelwald and his hordes during the European magical side of the Greater East Asia War." At people's nods, Mizuho smirked. "In doing so, the Wise Mistress Svetlána was condemned to die…but was saved by the kind intervention of a village of hybrid children who lived close to where she was incarcerated."

"What happened?" Utsumi Yukie asked.

"Naturally, Mistress Svetlána didn't care to be abused in that manner, so she stormed to England determined to make Master Theodore Nott — who is Master Sewell's chief ally amongst the purebloods of that land — answer for his willingness to violate the sanctity of her soul to gain that information." Ignoring the chorus of gasps from the Amazons on hearing the word "violate" — which implied rape in their worldview…thus would be pretty close to the standard Avalonian attitudes towards mind-raping — Mizuho smirked. "I noted this was happening after Lady Rachel and her friends had endured their body-swaps, so I went to assist Mistress Svetlána in her most noble crusade. As of now, Master Theodore is having his mind shredded by the noble Hollows of Gonebren and Mistress Robyn Willhelms — one of the many good warriors fighting under the banner of the Black Maidens — will claim his family seat in the House of Lords Wizengamot. At the same time, Master Karl — who was blood bonded to Mistress Svetlána — will be able to go live his life, as will Mistress Cathrin and our other friends."

"What about Sewell?" Hirono wondered.

"He is now effectively isolated and alone with only his surviving allies to aid him," Mizuho stated with an icy grin. "Since they can't stay for much longer inside those golem bodies they now possess, they must attack Azkaban as soon as possible to gain the necessary magic to create bodies of their own. Lady Rachel, how did it feel when you woke up in that golem body obtained for your use recently?"

Rachel frowned. "Like I was trapped in a swamp, Miss Mizuho," she answered. "And those horrid mosquitoes were biting me all over my body, even through my clothes."

"So you hoped you'd get a body made of flesh-and-blood back as soon as Master Adam could arrange for such?" the would-be warrior-priestess asked.

A firm nod from the leader of the Amazons. "Yes!"

Mizuho then shrugged. "Thus, they have no choice but to commit."

"What if they wised up?"

Eyes locked on Ogawa Sakura. "What do you mean, Sakura?" Nakagawa Noriko asked.

"This Sewell man's been 'alive' for five thousand years, remember?" the beautiful woman with the bob-cut umber brown-shaded hair and the expressive dark brown eyes said. As the others nodded — all the Amazons were flatly convinced that Sakura was one of the prettiest ladies they had ever met — in understanding, she then asked, "What's to stop him from wondering if he might be walking into a trap tomorrow morning?"

"He's an arrogant asshole, Sakura," Sōma Mitsuko stated.

"Miss Mitsuko! Don't cuss!" Eleanor chided. As the ex-prostitute gave her an annoyed look, the bespectacled first sergeant of the Amazons added, "Even if he deserves it!"

Laughter filled the lounge. "Well, as Mitsu was saying, he's an arrogant ass," Hirono then spoke up. "And as Mizu just hinted right now, he's going crazy being in a body that just doesn't mesh with his soul. So he's got to do something. All those idiots in Azkaban are just sitting there waiting to be taken. He'll do it."

"Is there some way to make sure of it?" Noriko wondered.

The others hummed…before Annabelle Maxwell perked. "Miss Mizuho, what did you do to our old bodies?" she then asked as she gazed on the would-be warrior-priestess.

Mizuho blinked. "I was going to destroy them, but got distracted by the events on the Isle of Lundy, Lady Annabelle," she answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Use them."

Eyes locked on her, then everyone blinked as they considered what the first lieutenant of the Amazons was suggesting. "Can we do that, Mizuho?" Megumi then asked.

_**It is well within my capabilities to manipulate the bodies recently vacated by the members of the Anderson County Amazons, Etō Megumi**_, the Staff then spoke up. **_However, using those bodies under 'remote control' will not make them seem as lifelike as they once were when the souls of Annabelle Helen Maxwell and her friends inhabited them._**

"Not for long," Hirono stated. "I think I know what Belle's aiming at here."

"What?" Satomi asked.

"Use them as _bait_ to make the vamps come out of where they're hiding," the taller girl answered. "And once they do, have the Black Maidens drop the whole world on them."

Silence fell as people sat back for a moment to consider that. "That could work, my friend," Mizuho then mused before sipping her juice.

The others nodded…

_**To be continued…**_

* * *

**WRITER'S NOTES**

1) Translations: **Junker** — Literally "young noble," this was the name applied to the landed nobility in old Prussia; **Podrúga Drakónov** — (Lady) Friend of Dragons; **Generál-Polkóvnik Vojsk Mágičeskie** — Literally "Colonel-General of Magical Troops," this would be the equal of a lieutenant general in most NATO armies (NATO rank code OF-8); **Podpolkóvnik** — Lieutenant Colonel (NATO rank code OR-4); **Prjagrád** — Short for "**Prjányj Vinográdnaja Vódka**" (literally "spiced grape wine vódka"), the name brand of the one of the Russian versions of fire whiskey; **Kyïv** — The proper spelling (using Scholarly Romanization of Ukrainian) of **Kiev**; **Ministerstvó Máriï** — Ministry of Magic; **Stáršij Práporščik** — Literally "senior flag bearer," this is the equal of a Canadian Forces chief warrant officer (NATO rank code OR-9) and was a rank re-introduced into the Soviet Army in 1972 (the _práporščik_ ranks had been abolished in 1917 and are in the midst of being abolished again by 2010); **Mládšij Seržánt** — Junior Sergeant; **Mágičeskix Polká Milícii** — Regiment of Magical Militia (the Russian version of the Corps of Law Aurors); **Akadémik** — Academician (the name of a member of an academy of science); **Bóže mij** — Ukrainian way of saying the Russian _Bóže moj_ ("God help me!"); **Kul'túrnyj** — Cultured/Civilized; **Mučénie** — Torture; **Konéc** — Finish/The End; **Dóbryj den'** — Good Day/Good Afternoon; **Ælf Retier** — Mixing the classical spelling of "elf" and the French verb _retirer_ ("to draw back"), this is a spell that will break the master-servant bond between a house elf and his/her owner (first introduced in _The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone_); **Hauptfeldwebel** — Literally "Head Sergeant," the equivalent of a Canadian Forces warrant officer (NATO rank code OR-7); **Ælf Implicare** — Mixing the classical spelling of "elf" with the Latin term _implicāre_ (the present active infinitive of the verb _implicō_ ["I embrace"]), this is the spell used to bind a house elf to a new master or mistress.

2) **Mollie Bean**'s proper given and middle name as shown here is my invention. As an aside, the note from the United States **Secretary of the Army** (short-form **SA** or **SECARMY**) seeing her promoted to the rank of brigadier general is based on Orders 31-3 (released 13 March 1978) which saw Lieutenant General **George Washington** (1732-99), the first President of the United States, posthumously promoted to the special rank grade of **General of the Armies of the United States** (**GAS**) with an effective date of 4 July 1976 (the American Bicentennial). It should be noted that Washington's promotion was to "_such grade to have rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present_," giving him seniority over all other officers of flag rank in that service.

3) A note on American medals and decorations noted on here:

The **Magical Cross of the United States of America** is that country's version of the first class Order of Merlin. The awards that would equal the second and third class versions of the Order of Merlin are the **Magical Star of the United States of America** and the **Magical Medal of the United States of America** respectively. In terms of order of precedence for someone who served in the military, the Magical Cross falls automatically below the Medal of Honour, with the Magical Star falling below the Purple Heart and the Magical Medal falling before any campaign medals. Unlike other American medals, the Magical Cross/Star/Medal are awarded in succession in case there are further instances when a recipient is seen as deserving another award; for example, a winner of the Magical Medal would be awarded the Magical Star if s/he did something that would have merited the award of the Magical Medal to one who had never got an award in the first place. Unlike other American awards, the magical awards can be worn as separate decorations. In Mollie Bean's case, she was awarded the Magical Medal in 1938 for her work as a Magical Marshal, the Magical Star in 1948 as a mark of her work in World War Two and the Magical Cross in 1960 for her work as America's magical ambassador to the ICMC and her teaching work at Salem.

The **Presidential Medal of Freedom** is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is the highest civilian award in the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavours." The Medal of Freedom was first instituted in 1963. It has a special grade — known as the **Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction** — that is the only sash medal awarded in the United States. While primarily a civilian award, the Medal of Freedom can also be awarded to military personnel; in that case, the Medal of Freedom falls in after military personal decorations and unit awards in the order of precedence. In Mollie's case, the Medal of Freedom falls in behind her Magical Medal.

4) **Moskvá Belorússkij** is the name of one of Moscow's nine main railway stations; this particular station is dedicated to serving all lines connecting to places west of Russia's capital city. Belorússkij Station is located two kilometres northwest of Red Square. **Warszawa Zachodnia** ("Warsaw West") is the name of a combined bus and railway station that serves both local, national and international travellers. It is located four kilometres west-southwest of the centre of Poland's capital city.

5) As I noted in _Phoenix From the Ashes_, the standard structure of Russian names is formed in the following format: "**Given Name + Patronymic + Family Name**." The standard patronymic is usually a combination of the father's name with either the endings **-ovič** (literally "son of…") or **-ovna** ("daughter of…"), though there are the odd variations, i.e. **Il'íč** ("son of Il'já") or **Il'ínična** ("daughter of Il'já"). Also, as shown above and in previous parts, it is common for Russians to always address people informally by given name and patronymic in combination, even with foreigners they befriend, i.e. **Hárold Jákovič** ("Harold, son of James") for **Harry Potter**. When encountering foreigners which earn a Russian's respect, the equivalent Russian version of a person's name — when such exist — is used in such a mode of address, such as **Avraám** for "Abraham." Atop that, in the local version of the Japanese practice of adding the suffix honorific **-chan** as a term of endearment, very close friends can make use of nicknames such as **Tanjá** for "Tat'jána" or **Ksjúša** for "Ksénija." Finally, female family names normally have an "-a" added at the end, i.e. **Múromeca** from "Múromec."

6) The **Tókarev SVT-40** — the "SVT" is short for **Samozápjadnaja Vintóvka Tókareva** ("Tókarev's Self-Loading Rifle") — was one of the first semi-automatic battle rifles devised by any nation; it is a peer of the famous **M1 Garand** weapon that equipped American forces during World War Two. Designed by **Fëdor V. Tókarev** (1871-1968), the SVT-40 — and its earlier version, the SVT-38 — worked on a short-stroke gas piston over the barrel that would move the bolt to eject the spent cartridge when the weapon is fired and load a new cartridge in the firing chamber. Unlike the M1, the SVT-40 had a detachable box magazine that carried ten rounds. Sadly, the SVT-40 only began to be produced in mass numbers when Operation: Barbarossa began in 1941…though it was available in sufficient numbers to outfit snipers in the Red Army. By the time the war ended, newer assault rifle designs such as the **Kalášnikov AK-47** had rendered the SVT-40 obsolete.

7) The **BM-13 Katjúša** — nicknamed the **Stalinorgel** ("Stálin's Organ") by the Germans — was a multiple-unit rocket artillery system that was first devised by the Soviet Union in 1939. Designed for fast production and rapid fire use, the various models of _Katjúša_ were used as massed mobile artillery to saturate a target with explosive rockets, then deploy to new locations to avoid enemy counter-battery fire. The BM-13 could fire sixteen RS-132 rockets carrying a 4.9 kilogram explosive charge — with a blast radius of ten metres — to a range of 8.7 kilometres. Thanks to its excellent off-road capabilities, the American-built **Studebaker US6** — in American service, this was known as the **M16A** — 2 1/2 ton truck supplied to Russian via Lend-Lease was considered the best launch platform for the Katjúša system. By war's end, over 10,000 Katjúša systems had been constructed and its influence on Soviet and Russian artillery doctrine remains to this very day.

8) The name I give to **Theodore Mason**'s mother is my invention.

9) _Battle Royale_ character notes:

**Tanizawa Haruka**, **Nakagawa Yūka** and **Utsumi Yukie** were three of the "lighthouse girls" along with Noda Satomi. Haruka was a player in the girl's volleyball team at Shiroiwa who once had a very bad experience with boys. Yūka was an overweight girl who acted as the class clown; she did all she could to make others happy even if her sense of humour could be a little ribald at times. She is also NOT related to Nakagawa Noriko. And Yukie was the girl's _iinchō_ (classroom representative) for their particular class. An intelligent and charismatic girl who was seen as a born leader, she also — as did many other girls in her class — had a crush on the male star of _BR_, Nanahara Shūya. All three girls would die in the events depicted in the manga stories "Doubt," "Crevice" and "Collapse" (manga episodes #69-71).

**Sakaki Yūko** was the woman who accidentally provoked the "Lighthouse Massacre" in the first place. A timid and shy girl who witnessed Shūya accidentally kill another of their classmates, she lost any sense of reason, finding herself convinced that he was a "devil boy" and needed to be killed. Thus, she tried to poison him…but accidentally poisoned Yūka instead, which set off Satomi. When she did realize what she did, Yūko killed herself at the end of the manga story "Reparation" (manga episode #74).

**Ogawa Sakura** was the female half of the star couple of Class 3-B; her boyfriend was **Yamamoto Kazuhiko**. A very pretty girl who had dated Kazuhiko for some time, she also once bet on the outcome of a _Program_ episode. In lieu of fighting their friends, Sakura and Kazuhiko elected to commit suicide when they were accidentally spooked by Yukie; they would die at the end of the manga story "Treasure" (manga episode #11).


End file.
